Dives, in fact, was frightened for himself and for Jekyl, and in those few moments, on the lobby, his sins looked gigantic and the vast future all dismay; and he felt that, bad as poor Jekyl might be, _he_ was worse--a false soldier--a Simon Magus--chaff, to be burnt up with unquenchable fire!
"I wish to God the Bishop had stayed over this night," said Dives, with clasped hands, and again turning his eyes upward. "We must send after him. I'll write to implore of him. Oh, yes, he'll come."
Even in this was a sense of relief; and treading more carefully, he softly turned the handle of the outer door, and listened, and heard Jekyl's cheerful voice say a few words to the nurse. He sighed with a sense of relief, and calling up a sunnier look, he knocked at Jekyl's half-open door, and stepped to his bedside.
"Well, Jekyl, my dear fellow--and how do you feel now? There, don't; you must not move, they told me," said Dives, taking his brother's hand, and looking with very anxious eyes in his face, while he managed his best smile.
"Pretty well--nothing. Have they been talking? What do they say?" asked Sir Jekyl.
"Say? Well, not much; those fellows never do; but they expect to have you all right again, if you'll just do what you're bid, in a week or two."
"Pratt's coming at five," he said. "What is it now?"
Dives held his watch to Jekyl, who nodded.
"Do you think I'll get over it, Dives?" he asked at length, rather ruefully.
"Get over? To be sure you will," answered Dives, doing his best. "It might be better for you, my dear Jekyl, if it _were_ a little more serious. We all need to be pulled up a little now and then. And there's nothing like an alarm of--of that kind for making a man think a little; for, after all, health is only a long day, and a recovery but a reprieve. The sentence stands against us, and we must, sooner or later, submit."
"Yes, to be sure. We're all mortal, Dives--is not that your discovery?" said Sir Jekyl.
"A discovery it is, my dear fellow, smile as we may--a discovery to me, and to you, and to all--whenever the truth, in its full force, opens on our minds."
"That's when we're going to die, I suppose," said Sir Jekyl.
"_Then_, of course; but often, in the mercy of God, long before it. That, in fact, is what we call people's growing serious, or religious; their perceiving, as a fact, that they _are_ mortal, and resolving to make the best preparation they can for the journey."