The Woodlanders - Page 227/314

"Rather much--but don't be frightened," he answered in a difficult

whisper, and turning himself to obtain an easier position if possible.

"A little water, please."

She ran across into the dining-room, and brought a bottle and glass,

from which he eagerly drank. He could then speak much better, and with

her help got upon the nearest couch.

"Are you dying, Edgar?" she said. "Do speak to me!"

"I am half dead," said Fitzpiers. "But perhaps I shall get over

it....It is chiefly loss of blood."

"But I thought your fall did not hurt you," said she. "Who did this?"

"Felice--my father-in-law!...I have crawled to you more than a mile on

my hands and knees--God, I thought I should never have got here!...I

have come to you--be-cause you are the only friend--I have in the world

now....I can never go back to Hintock--never--to the roof of the

Melburys! Not poppy nor mandragora will ever medicine this bitter

feud!...If I were only well again--"

"Let me bind your head, now that you have rested."

"Yes--but wait a moment--it has stopped bleeding, fortunately, or I

should be a dead man before now. While in the wood I managed to make a

tourniquet of some half-pence and my handkerchief, as well as I could

in the dark....But listen, dear Felice! Can you hide me till I am well?

Whatever comes, I can be seen in Hintock no more. My practice is nearly

gone, you know--and after this I would not care to recover it if I

could."

By this time Felice's tears began to blind her. Where were now her

discreet plans for sundering their lives forever? To administer to him

in his pain, and trouble, and poverty, was her single thought. The

first step was to hide him, and she asked herself where. A place

occurred to her mind.

She got him some wine from the dining-room, which strengthened him

much. Then she managed to remove his boots, and, as he could now keep

himself upright by leaning upon her on one side and a walking-stick on

the other, they went thus in slow march out of the room and up the

stairs. At the top she took him along a gallery, pausing whenever he

required rest, and thence up a smaller staircase to the least used part

of the house, where she unlocked a door. Within was a lumber-room,

containing abandoned furniture of all descriptions, built up in piles

which obscured the light of the windows, and formed between them nooks

and lairs in which a person would not be discerned even should an eye

gaze in at the door. The articles were mainly those that had belonged

to the previous owner of the house, and had been bought in by the late

Mr. Charmond at the auction; but changing fashion, and the tastes of a

young wife, had caused them to be relegated to this dungeon.