His absence was hardly noticed at the time. The difficulty of conveying
the wounded man to his room absorbed the attention of all the persons
present.
Sir Joseph partially recovered his senses while they were taking him up
the steep and narrow stairs. Carefully as they carried the patient, the
motion wrung a groan from him before they reached the top. The bedroom
corridor, in the rambling, irregularly built house rose and fell on
different levels. At the door of the first bedchamber the doctor asked a
little anxiously if that was the room. No; there were three more stairs
to go down, and a corner to turn, before they could reach it. The first
room was Natalie's. She instantly offered it for her father's use. The
doctor (seeing that it was the airiest as well as the nearest room)
accepted the proposal. Sir Joseph had been laid comfortably in his
daughter's bed; the doctor had just left them, with renewed assurances
that they need feel no anxiety, when they heard a heavy step below
stairs. Turlington had re-entered the house.
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