The doctors had declared their patient safe. The hour of danger had been
passed in safety, and the mischief worked by the poisoner's slow process
had been well nigh counteracted by medical skill.
"In six weeks' time you may take your wife for her honeymoon tour, Mr.
Hawkehurst, with her health and spirits thoroughly re-established,"
said Dr. Jedd.
"What is that you say about honeymoon tours?" cried Gustave Lenoble.
"Hawkehurst and his wife will spend their honeymoon at Cotenoir; is it
not, Diana?"
Diana replied that it was to be, and must be so.
It was impossible to imagine a happier party than that which met day
after day in those pleasant lodgings at Kilburn, wherein Georgy and Diana
and Charlotte had been established with much devotion and care on the
parts of Valentine and Gustave. Mr. Hawkehurst had chosen the apartments,
and M. Lenoble had spent the day before the wedding in rushing to and fro
between the West End and Kilburn, carrying hot-house flowers, comestibles
of all kinds from Fortnum and Mason's, bonbon boxes, perfumery, new
books, new music, and superintending the delivery of luxurious
easy-chairs, hired from expensive upholsterers, a grand piano, and a
harmonium.
"We will have music in the evenings," he said to Diana, upon her
expressing surprise on beholding these arrangements, "when we are
assembled here, all. How thou dost open thine eyes on beholding these
nothings! Do you think it has been no pleasure to me to testify my
affection for one who has been so good to thee--thy friend, thine
adopted sister? I wished that all things should look bright around her,
when they brought her here, after that she had come to escape from the
jaws of death.
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