"I am going back to town by the ten o'clock train," pursued the lawyer.
"I may hear, when I get back, that a discovery has been made--and it may
be of the greatest importance that I should have Franklin Blake at hand
to appeal to if necessary. I intend to tell him, as soon as he wakes,
that he must return with me to London. After all that has happened, may
I trust to your influence to back me?"
"Certainly!" I said.
Mr. Bruff shook hands with me and left the room. Betteredge followed him
out.
I went to the sofa to look at Mr. Blake. He had not moved since I had
laid him down and made his bed,--he lay locked in a deep and quiet
sleep.
While I was still looking at him I heard the bedroom door softly opened.
Once more Miss Verinder appeared on the threshold in her pretty summer
dress.
"Do me a last favor," she whispered. "Let me watch him with you."
I hesitated--not in the interest of propriety; only in the interest of
her night's rest. She came close to me and took my hand.
"I can't sleep; I can't even sit still in my own room," she said. "Oh,
Mr. Jennings, if you were me, only think how you would long to sit and
look at him! Say yes! Do!"
Is it necessary to mention that I gave way? Surely not!
She drew a chair to the foot of the sofa. She looked at him in a silent
ecstasy of happiness till the tears rose in her eyes. She dried her eyes
and said she would fetch her work. She fetched her work, and never did a
single stitch of it. It lay in her lap--she was not even able to look
away from him long enough to thread her needle. I thought of my own
youth; I thought of the gentle eyes which had once looked love at _me_.
In the heaviness of my heart I turned to my Journal for relief, and
wrote in it what is written here.
So we kept our watch together in silence,--one of us absorbed in his
writing; the other absorbed in her love.
Hour after hour he lay in deep sleep. The light of the new day grew and
grew in the room, and still he never moved.
Toward six o'clock I felt the warning which told me that my pains were
coming back. I was obliged to leave her alone with him for a little
while. I said I would go up-stairs and fetch another pillow for him out
of his room. It was not a long attack this time. In a little while I was
able to venture back and let her see me again.
I found her at the head of the sofa when I returned. She was just
touching his forehead with her lips. I shook my head as soberly as I
could, and pointed to her chair. She looked back at me with a bright
smile and a charming color in her face. "You would have done it," she
whispered, "in my place!"...
It is just eight o'clock. He is beginning to move for the first time.
Miss Verinder is kneeling by the side of the sofa. She has so placed
herself that when his eyes first open they must open upon her face.
Shall I leave them together?
Yes!