"I heard, by an accident, by what accident is no matter, that one
of my class was ill and solitary. I received no other description
of him, than that he lived in this street. Beginning my inquiries
at the first house in it, I have found him."
"I have been ill, sir," returned the student, not merely with a
modest hesitation, but with a kind of awe of him, "but am greatly
better. An attack of fever - of the brain, I believe - has
weakened me, but I am much better. I cannot say I have been
solitary, in my illness, or I should forget the ministering hand
that has been near me."
"You are speaking of the keeper's wife," said Redlaw.
"Yes." The student bent his head, as if he rendered her some
silent homage.
The Chemist, in whom there was a cold, monotonous apathy, which
rendered him more like a marble image on the tomb of the man who
had started from his dinner yesterday at the first mention of this
student's case, than the breathing man himself, glanced again at
the student leaning with his hand upon the couch, and looked upon
the ground, and in the air, as if for light for his blinded mind.
"I remembered your name," he said, "when it was mentioned to me
down stairs, just now; and I recollect your face. We have held but
very little personal communication together?"
"Very little.
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