Blind Love

A ring at the door pealed through the house. Lord Harry started in his

chair with a cry of terror.

"That," said the doctor, quietly, "is the nurse--the new nurse---the

stranger." He took off the handkerchief from Oxbye's face, looked about

the room as if careful that everything should be in its right place,

and went out to admit the woman. Lord Harry sprang to his feet and

passed his hand over the sick man's face.

"Is it done?" he whispered. "Can the man be poisoned? Is he already

dead?--already? Before my eyes?"

He laid his finger on the sick man's pulse. But the doctor's step and

voice stopped him. Then the nurse came in, following Vimpany. She was

an elderly, quiet-looking French woman.

Lord Harry remained standing at the side of the sofa, hoping to see the

man revive.

"Now," said Vimpany, cheerfully, "here is your patient, nurse. He is

asleep now. Let him have his sleep out--he has taken his medicine and

will want nothing more yet awhile. If you want anything let me know. We

shall be in the next room or in the garden--somewhere about the house.

Come, my friend." He drew away Lord Harry gently by the arm, and they

left the room.

Behind the curtain Fanny Mere began to wonder how she was to get off

unseen.

The nurse, left alone, looked at her patient, who lay with his head

turned partly round, his eyes closed, his mouth open. "A strange

sleep," she murmured; "but the doctor knows, I suppose. He is to have

his sleep out."

"A strange sleep, indeed!" thought the watcher. She was tempted at this

moment to disclose herself and to reveal what she had seen; but the

thought of Lord Harry's complicity stopped her. With what face could

she return to her mistress and tell her that she herself was the means

of her husband being charged with murder? She stayed herself,

therefore, and waited.

Chance helped her, at last, to escape.

The nurse took off her bonnet and shawl and began to look about the

room. She stepped to the bed and examined the sheets and pillow-case as

a good French housewife should. Would she throw back the curtain? If

so--what would happen next? Then it would become necessary to take the

new nurse into confidence, otherwise----Fanny did not put the

remainder of this sentence into words. It remained a terror: it meant

that if Vimpany found out where she had been and what she had seen and

heard, there would be two, instead of one, cast into a deep slumber.