Both the priest and his companion were eager to know when the sufferer would be strong enough to travel.
The y had come to Cartagena expressly to take him home with them, and felt far more hopeful than I did of the restorative effects of his native air.

After all the questions connected with the first important point of the journey to England had been asked and answered, I ventured to make some inquiries after Miss Elmslie.

Her relative informed me that she was suffering both in body and in mind from excess of anxiety on Alfred's account.

They had been obliged to deceive her as to the dangerous nature of his illness in order to deter her from accompanying the priest and her relation on their mission to Spain.
Slowly and imperfectly, as the weeks wore on, Alfred regained something of his former physical strength, but no alteration appeared in his illness as it affected his mind.
From the very first day of his advance toward recovery, it had been discovered that the brain fever had exercised the strangest influence over his faculties of memory.

All recollection of recent events was gone from him.