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"And pray, how long,—supposing I do just, and only, what you bid me,—how long do you think it likely I should linger?"
"O, some days, I have no doubt. Perhaps a week."
The storm, now, again kindled in her disordered mind: "How!" she cried, "have I done all this—dared, risked, braved all things human,—and not human—to die, at last, a common death?—to expire, in a fruitless journey, an unacknowledged, and unoffered sacrifice?—or to lie down tamely in my bed, till I am extinct by ordinary dissolution?—"
Wringing then her hands, with mingled anguish and resentment, "Mr. Naird," she cried, "if you have the smallest real skill; the most trivial knowledge or experience in your profession; bind up my wound so as to give me strength to speed to him! and then, though the lamp of life should be instantly extinguished; though the same moment that bless
