The Rock Ahead. Edmund Yates

      "Mr. Lloyd is not in yet, m'm," began Mrs. Bush, "and you'll be wanting your lunch."

      "No, thank you," said Mrs. Lloyd; "I can wait. I suppose you don't know when he is likely to be in?"

      "He said directly," replied Mrs. Bush; "and I wish he had kept to it, for I can't think the sick gentleman is any better. I've been to look at him, and he seems to me a deal worse since morning."

      Mrs. Lloyd looked rather vacantly at Mrs. Bush. "Have you a lodger ill in the house?" she asked. "That makes it still more inconvenient for you to receive me."

      Mrs. Bush felt uncomfortable at this question. How very odd that Mrs. Lloyd should not know about her husband's friend! They are evidently queer people, thought the landlady; and she answered rather stiffly:

      "The only lodger ill in the house, m'm, is the gentleman as came with Mr. Lloyd; and, in my opinion, he's very ill indeed."

      "Came with Mr. Lloyd?" said the young lady in a tone of great surprise. "Do you mean Mr. Gore? Can you possibly mean Mr. Gore?"

      "Just him," answered Mrs. Bush succinctly. "Didn't you know he was here with Mr. Lloyd?"

      "I knew he was coming to Brighton with him, certainly," said Mrs. Lloyd; "but I understood he was to leave immediately after the races--before I came down. What made him stay?"

      Mrs. Bush drew near the table, and, leaning her hands upon it, fell into an easy tone of confidential chat with Mrs. Lloyd. That lady sat still, looking thoughtfully before her, as the landlady began, but after a little resting her head on her hand and covering her eyes:

      "He stayed, m'm, because he was very ill, uncommon ill to be sure; I never saw a gentleman iller, nor more stubborn. His portmanteau was packed and ready when he went to the races, and he told Betsy he shouldn't be five minutes here when he'd come back; and Mr. Lloyd said to him in my hearing, 'Gore,' said he, 'how your digestion stands the tricks you play with it, I can not understand;' for they'd been breakfasting, and he had eat unwholesome, I can't say otherwise. But when they come from the races, they come in a cab, which wasn't usual; and, not to offend you, m'm, Mr. Lloyd had had quite enough" (here she paused for an expression of annoyance on the part of her hearer; but no such manifestation was made); "but Mr. Gore, he was far gone, and a job we had to get him upstairs without disturbing the drawing-rooms, I can assure you. And Mr. Lloyd told me he had been very ill all day at the races, and wouldn't come home or let them fetch a doctor--there were ever so many there--or anything, but would go on drinking, and when he put him in the cab, he wanted to take him to a doctor's, but he wouldn't go; and Mr. Lloyd did say, m'm, begging your pardon, that Mr. Gore damned the doctors, and said all the medicine he ever took, or ever would take, was in his portmanteau."

      "Was there no doctor sent for, then? Has nothing been done for him?" asked Mrs. Lloyd, with some uneasiness in her tone, removing her hand from her eyes and looking full at Mrs. Bush.

      "We've done--Betsy and me and Mr. Lloyd; for no one could be more attentive--all we could; but Mr. Gore was quite sensible, and have a doctor he would not; and what could we do? We gave him the medicine out of the case in his portmanteau. I mixed it and all, and he told me how, quite well; and this morning he was ever so much better."

      "And is he worse now? Who is with him?" asked Mrs. Lloyd, rising.

      "Well, m'm, I think he looks a deal worse; and I wish Mr. Lloyd was come in, because I think he ought to send for a doctor; I don't know what to do."

      "Who is with him?" repeated Mrs. Lloyd.

      "No one," returned Mrs. Bush. "No one is with him. When Mr. Lloyd went out, he told me Mr. Gore felt inclined to sleep; he had had some tea and was better, and I was not to let him be disturbed. But when I was upstairs just now, I heard him give a moan; and I knew he was not asleep, so I went in; and he looks very bad, and I couldn't get a word out of him but 'Where's Lloyd?'"

      "Take me to his room at once," said Mrs. Lloyd, "and send for a doctor instantly. We must not wait for anything."

      But the incorrigible Betsy had not yet returned, and Mrs. Bush explained to the stranger that she had no means of sending for a doctor until she could send Betsy.

      "Let me see Mr. Gore first, for a minute, and then I will fetch the nearest doctor myself," said Mrs. Lloyd; and passing out of the room as she spoke, she began to ascend the narrow staircase, followed by the landlady, instructing her that the room in which the sick man was to be found was the "two-pair front."

      The room in which the sick man lay was airy, and tolerably large. As Gertrude Lloyd softly turned the handle of the door, and entered, the breeze, which bore with it a mingled flavour of the sea and the dust, fluttered the scanty window-curtains of white dimity, and caused the draperies of the bed to flap dismally. The sun streamed into the room, but little impeded by the green blinds, which shed a sickly hue over everything, and lent additional ghastliness to the face, which was turned away from Gertrude when she entered the chamber. The bed, a large structure of extraordinary height, stood in front of one of the windows; the furniture of the room was of the usual lodging-house quality; an open portmanteau, belching forth tumbled shirts and rumpled pocket-handkerchiefs, gaped wide upon the floor; the top of the chest of drawers was covered with bottles, principally of the soda-water pattern, but of which one contained a modicum of brandy, and another some fluid magnesia. Everything in the room was disorderly and uncomfortable; and Gertrude's quick eye took in all this discomfort and its details in a glance, while she stepped lightly across the floor and approached the bed.

      The sunlight was shining on Harvey Gore's face, and showed her how worn and livid, how ghastly and distorted, it was. He lay quite still, and took no notice of her presence. Instantly perceiving the effect of the green blind, Gertrude went to the window and pulled it up, then beckoned Mrs. Bush to her side, and once more drew near the bed.

      "Mr. Gore," she said, "Mr. Gore! Do you not know me? Can you not look at me? Can you not speak to me? I am Mrs. Lloyd."

      The sick man answered her only with a groan. His face was an awful ashen gray; his shoulders were so raised that the head seemed to be sunken upon the chest; and his body lay upon the bed with unnatural weight and stillness. One hand was hidden by the bedclothes, the other clutched a corner of the pillow with cramped and rigid fingers. The two women exchanged looks of alarm.

      "Was he looking like this when you saw him last--since I came?" said Mrs. Lloyd, speaking in a distinct low tone directed completely into the ear of the listener.

      "No, no; nothing like so bad as he looks now," said Mrs. Bush, whose distended eyes were fixed upon the patient with an expression of unmitigated dismay. "Did you ever see anyone die?" she whispered to Gertrude Lloyd.

      "No; never."

      "Then you will see it, and soon."

      "Do you really think he is dying?" and then she leaned over him, shook him very gently by the shoulder, loosened his hold of the pillow, and said again,

      "Mr. Gore! Mr. Gore! Do you not know me? Can you not speak to me?"

      Again he groaned, and then, feebly opening his eyes, so awfully glazed and hollow that Gertrude recoiled with an irrepressible start, made a movement with his head.

      "He knows me," whispered Gertrude to Mrs. Bush; "for God's sake go for a doctor without an instant's delay! I must stay with him."

      The landlady, dreadfully frightened, was only too glad to escape from the room.

      For a few moments after she was left alone with the sick man Gertrude stood beside him quite still and silent; then he moved uneasily, again groaned, and made an ineffectual attempt to sit up in his bed. Gertrude tried to assist him; she passed her arms round his shoulders, and put all her strength to the effort to raise him, but in vain. The large heavy frame slipped from her hold, and sunk down again with ominous weight and inertness. Looking around in great fear, but still preserving her calmness, she perceived the bottle in which some brandy still remained. In an instant she had filled a wine-glass with the spirit, lifted the sufferer's feeble head, and