CHAPTER VII.
ACHILLES AND BRISEIS The honourable Mr.Dunborough's collapse arising rather from loss of blood than from an injury to a vital part, he was sufficiently recovered even on the day after the meeting to appreciate his nurse's presence.
Twice he was heard to chuckle without apparent cause; once he strove, but failed, to detain her hand; while the feeble winks which from time to time he bestowed on Mr.Thomasson when her back was towards him were attributed by that gentleman, who should have known the patient, to reflections closely connected with her charms.
His rage was great, therefore, when three days after the duel, he awoke, missed her, and found in her place the senior bedmaker of Magdalen--a worthy woman, learned in simples and with hands of horn, but far from beautiful.

This good person he saluted with a vigour which proved him already far on the road to recovery; and when he was tired of swearing, he wept and threw his nightcap at her.

Finally, between one and the other, and neither availing to bring back his Briseis, he fell into a fever; which, as he was kept happed up in a box-bed, in a close room, with every window shut and every draught kept off by stuffy curtains--such was the fate of sick men then--bade fair to postpone his recovery to a very distant date.
In this plight he sent one day for Mr.Thomasson, who had the nominal care of the young gentleman; and the tutor being brought from the club tavern in the Corn Market which he occasionally condescended to frequent, the invalid broke to him his resolution.
'See here, Tommy,' he said in a voice weak but vicious.

'You have got to get her back.

I will not be poisoned by this musty old witch any longer.' 'But if she will not come ?' said Mr.Thomasson sadly.
'The little fool threw up the sponge when she came before,' the patient answered, tossing restlessly.