'No hope?' he said, frowning. 'How do we know? Anyway there shall be
no poison I can help.' But the boy's wish was law.
On the afternoon before the arrival, Elizabeth was seized with
restlessness. When there was nothing more to be done in the way of
hospital provision (for which a list of everything needed had been
sent ahead to Doctor Renshaw)--of flowers, of fair linen--and when,
in spite of the spring sun shining in through all the open windows
on the bare spotless boards, she could hardly bear the sight and
meaning of the transformation which had come over the room, she
found herself aimlessly wandering about the big house, filled with a
ghostly sense of past and future. What was to be the real meaning of
her life at Mannering? She could not have deserted the Squire in the
present crisis. She had indeed no false modesty as to what her help
would mean, practically, to this household under the shadow of
death. At least she could run the cook and the servants, wrestle
with the food difficulties, and keep the Squire's most essential
business going.
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