Mrs. Rubelle looked very attentively at the patient, curtseyed to Lady Glyde, set one or two little things right in the room, and sat down quietly in a corner to wait until she was wanted.  Her ladyship seemed startled and annoyed by the appearance of the strange nurse.  No one said anything, for fear of rousing Miss Halcombe, who was still slumbering, except the doctor, who whispered a question about the night.  I softly answered, “Much as usual,” and then Mr. Dawson went out.  Lady Glyde followed him, I suppose to speak about Mrs. Rubelle.  For my own part, I had made up my mind already that this quiet foreign person would keep her situation.  She had all her wits about her, and she certainly understood her business.  So far, I could hardly have done much better by the bedside myself.

Remembering Mr. Dawson’s caution to me, I subjected Mrs. Rubelle to a severe scrutiny at certain intervals for the next three or four days.  I over and over again entered the room softly and suddenly, but I never found her out in any suspicious action.  Lady Glyde, who watched her as attentively as I did, discovered nothing either.  I never detected a sign of the medicine bottles being tampered with, I never saw Mrs. Rubelle say a word to the Count, or the Count to her.  She managed Miss Halcombe with unquestionable care and discretion.  The poor lady wavered backwards and forwards between a sort of sleepy exhaustion, which was half faintness and half slumbering, and attacks of fever which brought with them more or less of wandering in her mind.  Mrs. Rubelle never disturbed her in the first case, and never startled her in the second, by appearing too suddenly at the bedside in the character of a stranger.  Honour to whom honour is due (whether foreign or English)—­and I give her privilege impartially to Mrs. Rubelle.  She was remarkably uncommunicative about herself, and she was too quietly independent of all advice from experienced persons who understood the duties of a sick-room—­but with these drawbacks, she was a good nurse, and she never gave either Lady Glyde or Mr. Dawson the shadow of a reason for complaining of her.

The next circumstance of importance that occurred in the house was the temporary absence of the Count, occasioned by business which took him to London.  He went away (I think) on the morning of the fourth day after the arrival of Mrs. Rubelle, and at parting he spoke to Lady Glyde very seriously, in my presence, on the subject of Miss Halcombe.

“Trust Mr. Dawson,” he said, “for a few days more, if you please.  But if there is not some change for the better in that time, send for advice from London, which this mule of a doctor must accept in spite of himself.  Offend Mr. Dawson, and save Miss Halcombe.  I say this seriously, on my word of honour and from the bottom of my heart.”