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move further. I can’t face that journey. Fancy me between
Scylla and Charybdis! I don’t want to die on the Sicilian
plains-to be snatched away, like Proserpine in the same lo-
cality, to the Plutonian shades.’
‘What the deuce then did you come for?’ his lordship en-
quired.
‘Because the idea took me. I see it won’t do. It really
doesn’t matter where I am now. I’ve exhausted all remedies,
I’ve swallowed all climates. As I’m here I’ll stay. I haven’t a
single cousin in Sicily-much less a married one.’
‘Your cousin’s certainly an inducement. But what does
the doctor say?’
‘I haven’t asked him, and I don’t care a fig. If I die here
Mrs. Osmond will bury me. But I shall not die here.’
‘I hope not.’ Lord Warburton continued to smoke reflec-
tively. ‘Well, I must say,’ he resumed, ‘for myself I’m very
glad you don’t insist on Sicily. I had a horror of that jour-
ney.’
‘Ah, but for you it needn’t have mattered. I had no idea of
dragging you in my train.’
‘I certainly didn’t mean to let you go alone.’
‘My dear Warburton, I never expected you to come fur-
ther than this,’
Ralph cried.
‘I should have gone with you and seen you settled,’ said
Lord Warburton.
‘You’re a very good Christian. You’re a very kind man.’
‘Then I should have come back here.’
‘And then you’d have gone to England.’

560 The Portrait of a Lady