"You've been better than you were on the journey,
certainly. I wonder how you lived through that. But I don't understand
your condition. I recommend you to try Sicily."
"I can't try," said poor Ralph. "I've done trying. I can't move
further. I can't face that journey. Fancy me between Scylla and
Charybdis! I don't want to die on the Sicilian plains-to be snatched
away, like Proserpine in the same locality, to the Plutonian shades."
"What the deuce then did you come for?" his lordship enquired.
"Because the idea took me. I see it won't do. It really doesn't
matter where I am now. I've exhausted all remedies, I've swallowed all
climates. As I'm here I'll stay. I haven't a single cousin in
Sicily-much less a married one."
"Your cousin's certainly an inducement. But what does the doctor
say?"
"I haven't asked him, and I don't care a fig. If I die here Mrs.
Osmond will bury me. But I shall not die here."
"I hope not." Lord Warburton continued to smoke reflectively. "Well,
I must say," he resumed, "for myself I'm very glad you don't insist on
Sicily. I had a horror of that journey."
"Ah, but for you it needn't have mattered.
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