Vashti's Fate — page 275: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“« 4 “ye _ ee -™ ~ 2 _ * e . *. + >? 270 BANKRUPT, BODY AND SOUL. ‘‘Heaven forbid. You seem to me like an own son, Frank.” He was silent again, moodily thinking. Presently the doctor went out, and Nora, saying ‘‘ Let me tell him how you were through the night, Frank?” slipped from the room, apparently unnoticed by him. Overtaking Doctor Gracie a little way from the door, she said : ‘‘Tell me, sir, just how it is.” He answered her instantly and plainly, just as she de- served to be answered. ‘‘ He may live a week, and he may die to-morrow. An abscess will form toward the last, and then he will go very quick.” He detailed the symptoms to her of the approaching end in language too plain to be misunderstood, and wringing her hand, left her. She stood a minute composing her features, and returned to Frank. As she opened the door she was startled to dis- cover that it was ajar, and as she entered, there was Frank catching at the wall for support. He had followed her to the door, opened it a little way, and heard all. He submitted with dumb passiveness to be assisted back to his chair, and sat down without a word. Nora made no remark, and he did not himself allude to it all day; but whenever he fell asleep he would start from + with an ex- _ pression of unutterable terror. Doctor Gracie, who dropped in again during the day, said to Miss Gresham : ‘‘T don’t believe this malady could have made any head- way with a constitution like his if it had not been for the * a _ be a