Page 247 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

Frere was displeased at the interest with which she asked
the question.
‘You are always thinking of that fellow. It’s Dawes, Dawes,
Dawes all day long. He has gone.’
‘Oh!’ with a sorrowful accent. ‘Mamma wants to see
him.’
‘What about?’ says Frere roughly. ‘Mamma is ill, Mr.
Frere.’
‘Dawes isn’t a doctor. What’s the matter with her?’
‘She is worse than she was yesterday. I don’t know what
is the matter.’
Frere, somewhat alarmed, strode over to the little cav-
ern.
The ‘lady of the Commandant’ was in a strange plight.
The cavern was lofty, but narrow. In shape it was three-cor-
nered, having two sides open to the wind. The ingenuity of
Rufus Dawes had closed these sides with wicker-work and
clay, and a sort of door of interlaced brushwood hung at one
of them. Frere pushed open this door and entered. The poor
woman was lying on a bed of rushes strewn over young
brushwood, and was moaning feebly. From the first she had
felt the privation to which she was subjected most keenly,
and the mental anxiety from which she suffered increased
her physical debility. The exhaustion and lassitude to which
she had partially succumbed soon after Dawes’s arrival, had
now completely overcome her, and she was unable to rise.
‘Cheer up, ma’am,’ said Maurice, with an assumption of
heartiness. ‘It will be all right in a day or two.’
‘Is it you? I sent for Mr. Dawes.’

For the Term of His Natural Life