She had brought all this upon herself and Meredith and Dolff, through something which she had supposed to be love. It was all love, jealousy, double dealing, the stratagems and deceits which are supposed to be legitimate in love as in war. And yet it did not occur to Janet to care whether Meredith lived or died. The others thought that the chief thing, but she did not. What she would have liked most would have been that he should disappear out of her consciousness altogether, and never be more seen or heard of. She was almost impatient of the watchers and of all the anxiety there was about him, as if it mattered what became of him! She had felt as if she could almost strike at Dolff in her impatience when, instead of attending to the precautions she prescribed to him to save his owe life, he asked, “Is he dead?” For herself, if an earthquake could have taken him away, buried him in the earth, so that his very name should be extinguished, that was what Janet would have liked: but---- CHAPTER XXXIV. A week flew over the house in St. John’s Wood like a dream. Yet nothing could be more erroneous than to say that it flew the days went on feet of lead, not on wings--every hour was as long as a day. The room which had been devoted to Meredith became the centre of the house. The nurse, with her white cap and white apron, was now a recognized member of the family. She came and went when the doctor was with the patient, or when Gussy took her place, cheerful, though she had not very much that was encouraging to say. She told everybody who asked that the poor gentleman was very much the same, but her own opinion was that he was going on well. How he could be going on well while he remained unconscious she could not indeed say. Gussy spent a great deal of her time by that melancholy sick-bed. There is no such melancholy sick-bed. The breathing form from which the soul seems to have departed is a terrible sight to have before one’s eyes day by day. Gussy had not the use and wont of nursing, and Meredith lying thus helpless before her, rapt from the world and all its ways, with pathetic eyes that saw nothing, acquired the new power of utter and saddest helplessness over the woman who loved him. She would have taken the nurse’s place permanently had she been permitted. She was never weary, or would never, at least, acknowledge it, but she grew thinner and paler, disinclined to say anything, sitting silent at the meals over which she still dutifully presided, and doing everything she had been in the habit of doing with a sort of solemnity, as if that sick-bed, death-bed--which was it?--had made the rest of the world unreal to her.