“Must she remain here?  Is there no hope of our being able to remove her to a better place?”

“No hope whatever, for the present.  She has already been disturbed, as I understand, and she is seriously the worse for it.  Even if she gets better, even if she comes to herself again, it would still be a dangerous experiment to move her too soon—­the least excitement or alarm would be fatal to her.  You must make the best of this place as it is.  The landlady has my directions; and I will send a good nurse to help her.  There is nothing more to be done.  So far as her life can be said to be in any human hands, it is as much in your hands now as in mine.  Everything depends on the care that is taken of her, under your direction, in this house.”  With those farewell words he rose and quitted the room.

Left by himself, Kirke walked to the door of communication, and, knocking at it softly, told the landlady he wished to speak with her.

He was far more composed, far more like his own resolute self, after his interview with the doctor, than he had been before it.  A man living in the artificial social atmosphere which this man had never breathed would have felt painfully the worldly side of the situation—­its novelty and strangeness; the serious present difficulty in which it placed him; the numberless misinterpretations in the future to which it might lead.  Kirke never gave the situation a thought.  He saw nothing but the duty it claimed from him—­a duty which the doctor’s farewell words had put plainly before his mind.  Everything depended on the care taken of her, under his direction, in that house.  There was his responsibility, and he unconsciously acted under it, exactly as he would have acted in a case of emergency with women and children on board his own ship.  He questioned the landlady in short, sharp sentences; the only change in him was in the lowered tone of his voice, and in the anxious looks which he cast, from time to time, at the room where she lay.

“Do you understand what the doctor has told you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The house must be kept quiet.  Who lives in the house?”

“Only me and my daughter, sir; we live in the parlors.  Times have gone badly with us since Lady Day.  Both the rooms above this are to let.”

“I will take them both, and the two rooms down here as well.  Do you know of any active trustworthy man who can run on errands for me?”

“Yes, sir.  Shall I go—?”

“No; let your daughter go.  You must not leave the house until the nurse comes.  Don’t send the messenger up here.  Men of that sort tread heavily.  I’ll go down, and speak to him at the door.”