y and alarm. The physician positively
assured us that Miss Halcombe was out of danger. "She wants no doctor
now--all she requires is careful watching and nursing for some time to
come, and that I see she has." Those were his own words. That evening
I read my husband's touching sermon on Recovery from Sickness, with
more happiness and advantage (in a spiritual point of view) than I ever
remember to have derived from it before.

The effect of the good news on poor Lady Glyde was, I grieve to say,
quite overpowering. She was too weak to bear the violent reaction, and
in another day or two she sank into a state of debility and depression
which obliged her to keep her room. Rest and quiet, and change of air
afterwards, were the best remedies which Mr. Dawson could suggest for
her benefit. It was fortunate that matters were no worse, for, on the
very day after she took to her room, the Count and the doctor had
another disagreement--and this time the dispute between them was of so
serious a nature that Mr. Dawson left the house.

I was not present at the time, but I understood that the subject of
dispute was the amount of nourishment which it was necessary to give to
assist Miss Halcombe's convalescence after the exhaustion of the fever.
Mr. Dawson, now that his patient was safe, was less inclined than ever
to submit to unprofessional interference, and the Count (I cannot
imagine why) lost all the self-control which he had so judiciously
preserved on former occasions, and taunted the doctor, over and over
again, with his mistake about the fever when it changed to typhus. The
unfortunate affair ended in Mr. Dawson's appealing to Sir Percival, and
threatening (now that he could leave without absolute danger to Miss
Halcombe) to withdraw from his attendance at Blackwater Park if the
Count's interference was not peremptorily suppressed from that moment.
Sir Percival's reply (though not designedly uncivil) had only resulted
in making matters worse, and Mr. Dawson had thereupon withdrawn from
the house in a state of extreme indignation at Count Fosco's usage of
him, and had sent in his bill the next morning.

We were now, therefore, left without the attendance of a medical man.
Although there was no actual necessity for another doctor--nursing and
watching being, as the physician had observed, all that Miss Halcombe
required--I should still, if my authority had been consulted, have
obtained professional assistance from som