He remembered now the sudden way in which George
Lechmere had turned round and gone away when he saw him saying
goodbye to Martha, and how she had shrugged her shoulders in
contempt.
The man must either be mad, or of a frightfully jealous
disposition, to conjure up harm out of such an incident: and one
who would do so might well, when his brain was on fire, conjure up
this imaginary conversation. Still, he might have heard some man
talking to her. From what Sir John had said, she did leave the
house and go into the garden about that hour, and she certainly
never returned.
He remembered all about George Lechmere now. He had the reputation
of being the best judge of cattle in the neighbourhood, and a
thoroughly steady fellow, but he could see no resemblance in the
shrunk and wasted face to that he remembered.
That evening both the officers and men in the hospital were carried
away to the new one outside the town. When the doctor came in
before they were moved, he told Mallett that the man he had seen
had recovered from his swoon.
"He was very nearly gone," he said, "but we managed to get him
round, and it seems to me that he has been better since.
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