"Now," said Vimpany, cheerfully, "here is your patient, nurse. He is
asleep now. Let him have his sleep out--he has taken his medicine and
will want nothing more yet awhile. If you want anything let me know. We
shall be in the next room or in the garden--somewhere about the house.
Come, my friend." He drew away Lord Harry gently by the arm, and they
left the room.
Behind the curtain Fanny Mere began to wonder how she was to get off
unseen.
The nurse, left alone, looked at her patient, who lay with his head
turned partly round, his eyes closed, his mouth open. "A strange
sleep," she murmured; "but the doctor knows, I suppose. He is to have
his sleep out."
"A strange sleep, indeed!" thought the watcher. She was tempted at this
moment to disclose herself and to reveal what she had seen; but the
thought of Lord Harry's complicity stopped her. With what face could
she return to her mistress and tell her that she herself was the means
of her husband being charged with murder? She stayed herself,
therefore, and waited.
Chance helped her, at last, to escape.
The nurse took off her bonnet and shawl and began to look about the
room. She stepped to the bed and examined the sheets and pillow-case as
a good French housewife should.
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