"I will try," was the answer, "but he is growing weaker every day, and I
am afraid. However, the temperature is growing cooler and it gives us a
better chance."
Sedgwick tried by talking, by reading, and by drawing rosy pictures of
what they would do in England and America, to rouse Jordan, but without
much success.
He lay patient and still on his couch, and to all inquiries would answer:
"I'm perfectly comfortable, dear friend. Do not worry about me;
everything is as it should be."
Then Sedgwick tried another experiment. He told the sick man that he must
exert himself to be better; that sickness was often influenced by the
will of the patient, and added that the real work of trying to undo the
wrong perpetrated upon Browning would have to be done when they reached
England, and that he should then need the best counsel and help of his
friend.
Jordan listened and said: "I'll do the best I ken, Jim, but it will be
all right, I'm shor."
So the hours went by, and Captain McGregor told the engineer to crowd on
all steam, and to bribe the fireman to give the ship all the speed
possible.
At Suez, Sedgwick went ashore and cabled his wife that he was on the
"Pallas;" to come at once to Naples; to induce Jack and Rose to come
also, and, if she thought best, to bring Mrs. Hazleton, for Jordan was
ill, and he feared nothing but the cheer of friendly faces would arouse
him and give him the strength to live. He added that she must use her
woman's wits as to what she would tell Mrs. H., and that to outsiders it
must all seem but as running over to the continent for a few days'
outing.
When Grace Sedgwick, very early one morning, received and read that
message, she held it for many minutes, lost in thought. She had grown
very near to Mrs. Hazleton, but except when she had drawn from her the
story of her life, she had never probed in the least to see if in her
heart she was nursing a vast regret.
But she had noticed some things that led her to believe that the lady had
an anxiety which she was trying to conceal. She was always ready to visit
any point of interest that would naturally attract a stranger, or to
attend any public assemblage that a stranger might be lured to. Again,
she always approached such places with vivacity, and returned from them
in silence.
As Mrs. Sedgwick sat with the dispatch doubled up in her closed hand,
Mrs. Hazleton came into the room. Touching a chair by her side, Grace
said: "Come and sit by me, Margaret. I want to talk with you."
She complied, merely saying: "What do you want to talk about, love?"
"Are you happy?" asked Grace.
"Indeed, yes. Why do you ask?" was the reply. "Have you not been making
my life a bed of roses ever since your blessed eyes first rested on me?"
Grace looked at her intently for a moment, then said: "Is there some one
whom you wish exceedingly to see?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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