Of Charlotte's actual condition her
stepfather, therefore, knew very little. He was told that her state was
attended by danger; and the solemn faces which greeted him on every side
implied that the danger was extreme. From her room he was in a manner
excluded. If he went to her door to make some benevolent and paternal
inquiry, he was met on the threshold by Ann Woolper, the sleepless and
unresting. If he hinted a natural desire to see his invalid stepdaughter,
he was told that she had that moment fallen asleep, or that she was too
ill to see him. There was always some plausible reason why he should not
be admitted to her room; and finding that this was so, he did not press
the question.
He had taken Mrs. Woolper's measure, and had found that she was too
strong for him; doubly strong since she was supported and sustained by
that second sleepless watcher, Diana Paget, whom Mr. Sheldon had long ago
pronounced to be a strong-minded and superior young person.
From his wife he could obtain no real information--nothing but weepings
and lamentations; weak apprehensions of future woe, weaker retrospective
reflections on the fatal illness and untimely end of her first husband.
Georgy was admitted once or twice a day to the sick-room; but she emerged
therefrom no wiser than she entered it. Sorrow in the present, and the
fear of greater sorrow to come, had utterly prostrated this poor weak
soul.
Pages:
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468