* * * * *
An hour later the hall was deserted, except for Elizabeth, who,
after seeing Pamela to bed, came down to write some household
letters by the only fire. Presently the surgeon who was sitting up
with Desmond appeared, looking worried. His countenance brightened
at sight of Elizabeth, with whom he had already had much practical
consultation.
'Could you persuade Mr. Mannering to go to bed?'
Elizabeth rose with some hesitation and followed him into the
library. The great room, once so familiar, now so strange, the
nurses in their white uniforms, moving silently, one standing by the
bed, watch in hand--Major Mannering on the farther side,
motionless--the smell of antiseptics, the table by the bed with all
its paraphernalia of bandages, cups, glasses, medicine bottles--the
stillness of brooding death which held it all--seemed to dash from
her any last, blind, unreasonable hope that she might have
cherished.
The Squire standing by the fire, where he had been opposing a
silent but impatient opposition to the attempt of doctor and nurses
to make him take some rest, saw Elizabeth enter.
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