Jedd to Valentine Hawkehurst as he said this.
The physician's face told him no more than he might have learnt from a
blank sheet of paper. Valentine's face was dark and gloomy; but that
gloomy darkness might mean no more than natural grief.
"I will take you to my stepdaughter's room at once," he said to the
physician.
"I think it will be better for me to see the young lady alone," the
doctor answered coolly: "that is to say, in the presence of her nurse
only."
"As you please," Mr. Sheldon replied.
He went back to his study. Georgy was sitting there, whimpering in a
feeble way at intervals; and near her sat Diana, silent and gloomy. A
settled gloom, as of the grave itself, brooded over the house. Mr.
Sheldon flung himself into a chair with an impatient gesture. He had
sneered at the inconvenience involved in uncarpeted floors, but he was
beginning to feel the aggravation of that inconvenience. These two women
in his study were insupportable to him. It seemed as if there was no room
in the house in which he could be alone; and just now he had bitter need
of solitary meditation.
"Let them arrange the dining-room somehow, carpet or no carpet," he said
to his wife. "We must have some room to dine in; and I can't have you
here, Georgy; I have letters to write."
Mrs. Sheldon and Diana were not slow to take the hint.
"I'm sure I don't want to be here, or anywhere," exclaimed Georgy in
piteous accents; "I feel so miserable about Charlotte, that if I could
lie down and die, it would be a comfort to me.
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