Lindsay
was very well content to submit; he confessed to fever off and on for
four and five days past, and while the world went round the pivotal
staircase, as Dr. Livingstone gave him an elbow up, he was indistinctly
convinced that the house of a friend was better than a shelf at the
club. The next evening's meeting saw his place empty under the window of
the hall in Crooked lane, noticeably for the first time in weeks of
these exercises. The world shrank, for Laura, to the compass of the
kerosene lamps; there was no gaze from its wider sphere against which
she must key herself to indifference. When on the second and third
evenings she was equally undisturbed, it was borne in upon her that
either she or Mr. Arnold, or both, had prevailed, and she offered up
thanks. On the fourth she reflected recurrently and anxiously that it
was not after all a very glorious victory if the Devil had carried off
the wounded; if Lindsay, after all the opportunities that had been his,
should slip back without profit to the level from which she had
striven--they had all striven--to lift him. Mrs. Sand, not satisfied to
be buffeted by such speculations, sent a four-anna bit to the head
bearer at the club on her own account and obtained information.
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