Blind Love

Fanny's unforgiving master pointed to the door; she thanked Mr.

Vimpany, and went out. Lord Harry eyed his friend in angry amazement.

"Are you mad?" he asked.

"Tell me something first," the doctor rejoined. "Is there any English

blood in your family?"

Lord Harry answered with a burst of patriotic feeling: "I regret to say

my family is adulterated in that manner. My grandmother was an

Englishwoman."

Mr. Vimpany received this extract from the page of family history with

a coolness all his own.

"It's a relief to hear that," he said. "You may be capable (by the

grandmother's side) of swallowing a dose of sound English sense. I can

but try, at any rate. That woman is too bold and too clever to be

treated like an ordinary servant--I incline to believe that she is a

spy in the employment of your wife. Whether I am right or wrong in this

latter case, the one way I can see of paring the cat's claws is to turn

her into a nurse. Do you find me mad now?"

"Madder than ever!"

"Ah, you don't take after your grandmother! Now listen to me. Do we run

the smallest risk, if Fanny finds it her interest to betray us? Suppose

we ask ourselves what she has really found out. She knows we have got a

sick man from a hospital coming here--does she know what we want him

for? Not she! Neither you nor I said a word on that subject. But she

also heard us agree that your wife was in our way. What does that

matter? Did she hear us say what it is that we don't want your wife to

discover? Not she, I tell you again! Very well, then--if Fanny acts as

Oxbye's nurse, shy as the young woman may be, she innocently associates

herself with the end that we have to gain by the Danish gentleman's

death! Oh, you needn't look alarmed! I mean his natural death by lung

disease--no crime, my noble friend! no crime!"

The Irish lord, sitting near the doctor, drew his chair back in a

hurry.

"If there's English blood in my family," he declared, "I'll tell you

what, Vimpany, there's devil's blood in yours!"

"Anything you like but Irish blood," the cool scoundrel rejoined.

As he made that insolent reply, Fanny came in again, with a sufficient

excuse for her reappearance. She announced that a person from the

hospital wished to speak to the English doctor.

The messenger proved to be a young man employed in the secretary's

office. Oxbye still persisting in his desire to be placed under Mr.

Vimpany's care; one last responsibility rested on the official

gentlemen now in charge of him. They could implicitly trust the medical

assistance and the gracious hospitality offered to the poor Danish

patient; but, before he left them, they must also be satisfied that he

would be attended by a competent nurse. If the person whom Mr. Vimpany

proposed to employ in this capacity could be brought to the hospital,

it would be esteemed a favour; and, if her account of herself satisfied

the physician in charge of Oxbye's case, the Dane might be removed to

his new quarters on the same day.