I went back to the doctor to tell him, by Lady Glyde’s desire, that she insisted on speaking to him immediately.  He withdrew at once to quiet her ladyship’s agitation, and to assure her of the physician’s arrival in the course of a few hours.  Those hours passed very slowly.  Sir Percival and the Count were together downstairs, and sent up from time to time to make their inquiries.  At last, between five and six o’clock, to our great relief, the physician came.

He was a younger man than Mr. Dawson, very serious and very decided.  What he thought of the previous treatment I cannot say, but it struck me as curious that he put many more questions to myself and to Mrs. Rubelle than he put to the doctor, and that he did not appear to listen with much interest to what Mr. Dawson said, while he was examining Mr. Dawson’s patient.  I began to suspect, from what I observed in this way, that the Count had been right about the illness all the way through, and I was naturally confirmed in that idea when Mr. Dawson, after some little delay, asked the one important question which the London doctor had been sent for to set at rest.

“What is your opinion of the fever?” he inquired.

“Typhus,” replied the physician “Typhus fever beyond all doubt.”

That quiet foreign person, Mrs. Rubelle, crossed her thin brown hands in front of her, and looked at me with a very significant smile.  The Count himself could hardly have appeared more gratified if he had been present in the room and had heard the confirmation of his own opinion.

After giving us some useful directions about the management of the patient, and mentioning that he would come again in five days’ time, the physician withdrew to consult in private with Mr. Dawson.  He would offer no opinion on Miss Halcombe’s chances of recovery—­he said it was impossible at that stage of the illness to pronounce one way or the other.

The five days passed anxiously.

Countess Fosco and myself took it by turns to relieve Mrs. Rubelle, Miss Halcombe’s condition growing worse and worse, and requiring our utmost care and attention.  It was a terribly trying time.  Lady Glyde (supported, as Mr. Dawson said, by the constant strain of her suspense on her sister’s account) rallied in the most extraordinary manner, and showed a firmness and determination for which I should myself never have given her credit.  She insisted on coming into the sick-room two or three times every day, to look at Miss Halcombe with her own eyes, promising not to go too close to the bed, if the doctor would consent to her wishes so far.  Mr. Dawson very unwillingly made the concession required of him—­I think he saw that it was hopeless to dispute with her.  She came in every day, and she self-denyingly kept her promise.  I felt it personally so distressing (as reminding me of my own affliction during my husband’s last illness) to see how she suffered under these circumstances, that I must beg not to dwell on this part of the subject any longer.  It is more agreeable to me to mention that no fresh disputes took place between Mr. Dawson and the Count.  His lordship made all his inquiries by deputy, and remained continually in company with Sir Percival downstairs.