George Manville Fenn (continued 3)

But Isabel had reached the door and darted out, for, through the window came the faint crunch, crunch, of manly steps upon the gravel.

For, naturally enough, Sir Cheltnam’s quest had been in vain, as far as Isabel was concerned, but after looking about the lawn he had caught sight of someone seated beneath the drooping ash at one corner, and in the hope that it was she whom he sought, he had walked silently across the velvet grass to find that the heavy leafy screen was deceptive and that it was Alison leaning back in a garden-chair.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, as he pulled aside the pendent boughs.

“Yes. Who did you think it was?” replied Alison surlily.

“Your sister. Is she always going to play hide-and-seek with me like this?”

“Like what? How should I know?”

“Look here, young fellow,” cried Sir Cheltnam; “what’s come to you these last three weeks?”

“Nothing.”

“Bah! I’m not blind. There’s something the matter. It isn’t filial affection and grief, because the old man’s getting better. It isn’t love, because the fair Dana is pining for you on horseback somewhere. There is only one other grief can befall a hale, hearty young man; so it’s money.”

“Nonsense!”

“Must be, and if so, my dear boy, come in a brotherly way to me for help, and it is yours, either with a check of my own or somebody else’s in the city.”

“It isn’t money,” said Alison shortly. “I’ve as much as I want.”

“My dear Alison Elthorne,” cried Sir Cheltnam, grasping his hand, “that will do. You must stop now. You can go no farther. A young man of your years, appearance, and pursuits who can say that he has as much money as he wants, is a paragon, a rara avis in terris, a perfect model.”

“Don’t fool.”

“I am not fooling, but speaking in sober earnest. My dear boy, you must be photographed, painted, modelled, sculptured, and, hang it all, my dear Alison, you will have to be put in Madame Tussaud’s.”

“Then it will be in the Chamber of Horrors for killing you,” said Alison fiercely. “I’m not in a humour to be played with, so leave off.”

“Then if it is not money, it’s love,” said Sir Cheltnam. “I’ve done, my dear boy; but tell me where your sister is.”

“I don’t know.”

“Or won’t know,” said Sir Cheltnam. “Never mind. You will be better soon, and then apologetic.” Alison made no answer, and Sir Cheltnam walked slowly away.

“Sulky cub!” he muttered. “What’s the matter with him? Quarrelled with Dana perhaps, and she is leading him a life. Well, she is quite capable of doing it, and her sister will keep a pretty tight curb on Neil. I shall have a nice set of brothers and sisters-in-law when it comes off. Well, I don’t know that it much matters. I am quite capable of keeping a watch over my own front door.”

Chapter Twelve.

Maria is Venomous.

“Come in,” said Aunt Anne, in response to a knock, and Maria Bell entered, to stand for a moment watching while a few entries were made diligently in the housekeeping book. Then Aunt Anne raised her head and coughed, a signal which Maria knew of old as premonitor of a scolding, and, to ward it off, struck first.

“Oh, much better, ma’am, thank you,” she said hastily; “and it’s very kind of you to ask. I’m getting as strong as I was before I went to the hospital, and I think the wine you gave me has done me a deal of good. I hope master’s much better this morning, ma’am.”

“Yes; your master is much better, Maria.”

“I’m very glad, ma’am, for more reasons than one.” Aunt Anne had made up and rehearsed a speech relative to the neglect of certain duties, now that Maria was back, and that though she had been ill, and allowances would be made and she would still be well cared for, she was not to expect that she was to lead a life of idleness, especially as there was now an invalid permanently in the house. But Maria’s manner and that addition or qualifying of her joy at her master’s improvement, quite drove the admonitory remarks out of her head by exciting curiosity.

“Eh?” she exclaimed, “for more reasons than one, Maria? What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, nothing, ma’am,” said the woman, tightening her lips, and taking up the hem of her apron to arrange in plaits.

“Maria, you know, and have known for years, how I hate and detest mystery. I desire that you tell me what you mean.”

“Nothing at all, ma’am, indeed. I really—that is—I am very glad that master is better—that’s all.”

“That is not all, Maria. I despise hints, as you well know.”

“Really, ma’am, there is nothing.”

“Maria, you cannot deceive me. I can read you perfectly. You have some reason for that innuendo and after all I have done for you and that Mr Neil has done for you, I consider that you are acting very ungratefully by this reserve.”

Maria began to cry.

“It—it—it wasn’t from ungratefulness ma’am, I’m sure, for I’m bubbling over with gratitude to you and Mr Neil, and it was all on account of him that I spoke as I did.”

“Now, Maria, what do you mean?” cried Aunt Anne, for the spark ignited upon her tinder-like nature was rapidly beginning to glow.

“Please, please, don’t ask me, ma’am,” said Maria, with sobs. “I would not make mischief in a house for worlds.”

“Nobody asks you to make mischief, Maria; but if you have seen peculations, or matters connected with the housekeeping going wrong during your master’s illness, it is your duty to speak.”

“Yes, ma’am, but it wasn’t anything of that sort.”

“Then what was it?” said Aunt Anne judicially. “And I’d be the last to speak, ma’am, knowing how valuable a character is to a poor person; and well I know how easy it is to make mistakes and be deceived, especially about such matters as that.”

“Maria, I insist. Why do you wish your master to be better?”

“Oh, of course, I want to see him quite well, ma’am, for though a bit ’arsh, a better master—”

“What other reason, Maria?”

“Well, ma’am, if I must speak, it is because I shall be glad when master’s down again, and nurse is gone.”

“Nurse? Stop a moment. She attended you at the hospital?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Maria, in a peculiar tone, which suggested neglect, ill-treatment, and all kinds of unfeminine behaviour; “she attended me. I was in her ward.”

“Well?”

“Oh, that’s all, ma’am.”

“It is not all, Maria, and I desire that you speak.”

“I don’t like to see a woman like that attending master.”

“It was the doctor’s orders, Maria.”

“So I s’pose, ma’am. I heard that Sir Denton sent her down. He thinks a deal of her. You see he’s a very old gentleman, ma’am, and she flatters him, and makes believe to be very attentive, and she was always just the same to Mr Neil, ma’am. I was a-lying there in pain and suffering and affliction sore, but I couldn’t help using my eyes, and I saw a great deal.”

“Maria!”

“Oh, it’s a fact, ma’am, and if I’d gone on as she did talking to the young doctors, I should never have expected to keep no place; but of course a head nurse is different to a hupper ’ousemaid.”

“That will do, Maria,” said Aunt Anne. “I cannot listen to such scandalous tattle. I have no doubt about its being all imagination on your part.”

“I only wish it was, ma’am, I’m sure.”

“It’s only a temporary arrangement, of course; and now, I wanted to speak to you about several little pieces of neglect I have observed that must not occur again. I know you have been ill, but it is quite time that you were a little more attentive, especially as we are about to have company.”

“Company, ma’am?”

“Yes; the Miss Lydons will be here to dinner on Friday, and they will stay the night, so I desire that their rooms are properly prepared before they come, and of course, as they will not bring their maid you will wait upon them.”

“Yes, ma’am; I’ll do my very best, and I hope—”

“That will do, Maria.”

“But there was one thing I should like to tell you, ma’am.”

Aunt Anne was burning with curiosity, but she raised her hand.

“Not another word, Maria. You know I never listen to the servants’ tattle. Now go about your work.”

“I ’ate her,” muttered Maria, as soon as she was in the hall, which she crossed so as to get to the back stairs; “and if I haven’t put a spoke in her wheel this time my name isn’t what it is.”

Maria tightened her lips as if to condense her spleen against the patient, long-suffering woman who had had the misfortune to incur her dislike.

“A thing like her!” she continued muttering. “A beggarly nurse, with not so much as a box of her own to bring down when she comes into a gentleman’s house, and giving herself airs as if she was a lady. Oh, dear me, and indeed! Couldn’t stoop to talk to a poor girl as if she was a fellow-creature, at the hospital; and down here, lor’ bless us! anyone would think she was a duchess up in the skies instead of a common hospital nurse. Oh, I do ’ate pride, and if it wasn’t that it do have a fall there’d be no living with such people.”

Maria was not very strong yet, and she stopped short—as she expressed it to herself, with her heart in her mouth—and turned red and then pale on hearing a faint rustle behind her, and the nurse’s low sympathetic voice accosting her.

“Ah, Maria, are you better this morning?”

“Oh, yes, thank you, ma’am, much better.”

There was a tremendous emphasis on the “ma’am,” suggestive of keen and subtle sarcasm, and the revolt of honest humility against assumption.

“I am very glad,” said the nurse gently. “Mrs Barnett said that there were several little things you might do now in Mr Elthorne’s room.”

Maria’s face turned scarlet, and she faced round viciously.

“Then it was you, was it, who complained to her that I didn’t do my work properly?”

“I, my good girl?” said Nurse Elisia, smiling. “Oh, no.”

“It must have been. Nobody else wouldn’t have been so mean as to go telling tales.”

“You are making a great mistake, Maria,” said the nurse, with quiet dignity. “I certainly asked Mrs Barnett about a few things being done in your master’s room, and she referred me to you.”

“I don’t want you to come here teaching me my work.”

“Oh, no, I will not interfere, Maria,” said the nurse coldly; “but it is necessary that the room should be seen to.”

“Thank you, ma’am; as if I didn’t know what a ’ousemaid’s work is. Oh, I haven’t patience with such mean, tale-bearing, stuck-up ways.”

The nurse looked at her in a pained way, and for a few moments there was a slight flash of resentment in her face; but it died out directly, and she spoke very gently:

“You are making a mistake, Maria.”

“Don’t ‘Maria’ me, please—ma’am,” cried the housemaid; and that “ma’am” was tremendous.

“Stop,” said the nurse, gently and firmly, and her eyes seemed to fascinate the woman, as a hand was laid upon her arm. “You have passed through a very trying ordeal lately, and it has affected your nervous system. You must not give way to an angry, hysterical fit like this. It is dangerous in your state.”

“Oh, don’t you begin to ‘my lady’ it over me.” Nurse Elisia changed colour a little, and darted a penetrating look at the speaker, but her countenance resumed its old calm directly, and she went on firmly.

“Take my advice, Maria; now do as I tell you. Never mind about the work—I will do what is necessary myself. Go up to your bedroom and lie down for an hour, till you have grown calm and cool.”

“I shan’t,” cried Maria, with the passionate utterance of an angry child; “and I won’t stop in a house where—where,”—there was a hysterical outburst of sobbing here—“such goings on—and I’ll take my month.”

“Let me take you up to your room.”

“No, no! I won’t go. I—oh, oh, oh!”

But the strong will prevailed over the weak, and Maria suffered herself to be led along the corridor till, a figure approaching at the end, she cried spitefully through her sobs: “Of course, I know. To get me out of the way. Oh, I’m not blind.”

Nurse Elisia’s hand fell from the woman’s arm as if it had been a gymnotus, and there was an indignant look in her eyes as they met Neil Elthorne’s searchingly, in fear lest he had heard the malignant utterance.

“What is the matter?” he said. “Why, Maria, I thought you were so much better.”

“It is a little hysterical attack,” said the nurse quietly. “I was advising her to go and lie down, sir.”

“Yes, of course,” said Neil quickly, as he caught the woman’s wrist. “Go and lie down at once. You must not give way to that sort of thing, Maria. You are not quite yourself yet.”

“I—I’m better, now, sir,” she said, as she struggled for the mastery over herself. “No, thank you! I can go by myself.”

“Oh, yes,” she muttered, as she glanced back on reaching the swing-door at the end of the corridor. “I’m not blind. A nice creature!—and him to go on like that. But I’ve not done yet.”

Chapter Thirteen.

Aunt Anne’s Resolutions.

Aunt Anne would not, she said, listen to Maria’s tattle, but the woman’s words went home.

“I suspected it,” she said to herself, “and go she shall before matters are worse. It is always the way with these quiet, artful women.”

So she took up her pen to write to Sir Denton Hayle, but she did not begin, for it occurred to her that if she did write and ask him to recall the nurse, he would immediately communicate with Neil to ask for an explanation, and whether Nurse Elisia had neglected her duties.

“And that’s the worst of it,” said Aunt Anne to herself, “she never has, but has done wonders for poor Ralph.”

Then it occurred to her also that, though Neil was only her nephew, he was fast rising into the position of an eminent surgeon, and that in such a case as this she would not have dared to interfere if he had been someone else.

“Oh, dear me!” she said pettishly, “it’s very dreadful. Women always were at the bottom of all the mischief in the world. I’ve suspected it; Neil has been so changed, and so has Alison. It seems monstrous, but as sure as I’m a living woman she has managed to attract them both, and it must be stopped or do one knows what mischief will happen. Why, those two might quarrel dreadfully, and then-Oh, dear me, I’m very glad Saxa and Dana are coming. They will be the real cure for the trouble after all.”

She took up her pen again, but only to throw it back on to the silver tray.

“No; I mustn’t write. Stop, I know; I’ll go in and sit with Ralph this afternoon, and quietly work round to the point of the nurse leaving now. Isabel and I could do everything he requires.”

“No,” she cried, with her face full of perplexity, “he would only fly in a passion and abuse me for interfering, and insist upon keeping her twice as long, and if I told him what I thought about Neil and Alison it would enrage him so that he would have some terrible relapse. Oh, dear me! I don’t know what Nature could have been about to make a nurse with a face and a soft, cooing voice like that woman’s. Bless me!” she cried aloud. “Neil, you shouldn’t make me jump like that.”

“Didn’t you hear me come in, Aunt?”

“No, my dear, and I am so nervous. It came on when your father had his accident.”

“Oh, that will soon go off. I’ve just had a message from Sir Denton.”

“To say that we need not keep the nurse any longer, and that he wants her back at the hospital?”

“No, Aunt, dear, in response to a letter of mine written days ago,” said Neil, looking at her curiously.

“What about, then?”

“To say that he is on his way down here to see my father again, and give me his opinion about the progress made.”

“But, Neil, my dear, you should not ask people like that. The Lydon girls are coming, and I cannot ask one of them to give up her room, and I’m sure Sir Denton wouldn’t like mine, looking out toward the stables, though you can’t see them.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, Aunt, dear. He will not stay. He will come down by one train, spend an hour here, and go back to town at once. I want his indorsement of my ideas respecting a change of treatment.”

“Oh, if that is the case, then I need not worry.”

“Not in the least, Aunt. Only see that the lunch is kept back.”

“Of course, my dear. I am relieved. For it would have been awkward with those girls here.”

“They are coming, then?” said Neil absently. “Why, you know they are coming, dear. Really, Neil, I shall be very glad when you are married—and Alison, too, if it comes to that.”

Neil looked at her searchingly, but his aunt’s face was perfectly calm—placid to a degree—though all the while she was congratulating herself upon the subtlety and depth of her nature in introducing the subject so cleverly.

“And why, pray?” he said coldly.

“Because you want something else to think about besides cutting off people’s arms and legs. I declare you are quite growing into a dreamy, thoughtful old man. If I were Saxa Lydon I should take you to task finely about your carelessness and neglect. I declare I’ve felt quite ashamed of you.”

He looked at her sadly.

“I’m afraid I am anything but a model young man, Auntie.”

“Indeed you are, sir, and it’s quite time you mended. I don’t know what your father will say to you when he gets better. It is one of his pet projects, you know. Fortunately, Saxa is not like most girls.”

“No,” he said aloud, unintentionally. “Saxa is not like most girls.”

“Then do, pray, make haste and get your father well and the nurse out of the house.”

“Why are you in such a hurry to get the nurse out of the house, Aunt?”

“My dear! What a question! I declare, Neil, you revel in sick rooms, and in having nurses near you. This is not a hospital. Of course I want to see the nurse gone, and your father about again.”

Neil frowned, and his aunt saw it. She added hastily:

“Not that I have a word to say against Nurse Elisia. I’m sure her attention to your poor father deserves all praise.”

“God bless her! yes,” said Neil, in a low, grave tone. “She has saved his life.”

“Oh, no, my dear; I am not going so far as that,” said Aunt Anne in alarm, so earnest was her nephew’s utterance. “Nurses are not doctors.”

“But they often do far more for the patients, Aunt.”

“Do they, my dear? Oh, well, I dare say you are right.”

“Yes, I am right,” he said dreamily, and he turned and left the room, unaware of the fact that Aunt Anne was watching him intently.

“Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me!” she said to herself, “what a tone of voice! He is thinking about her. There is no doubt about it, but he is sorry and repentant. I can read him like a book. Yes; he is sorry. My words brought him back to a sense of duty, and he will be as nice as can be to Saxa in future. I’m sure I could not have spoken better. It is a great advantage—experience, and a good knowledge of human nature. Now that boy—well, he always was the dearest and best of boys, and if he had been my own I couldn’t have thought more of him—that boy knows he has been doing wrong in letting himself be attracted by a pretty face, and my words have thoroughly brought him round. Maria was quite right, and I must talk to Alison too, and—yes, I will; I’ll manage to have a chat with Sir Denton and beg him as a great favour to let me finish nursing my brother. I will not say a word about the nurse. Dear me! what am I thinking about? I quite forgot to tell them we would lunch at half-past two.”

Aunt Anne got up and rang the bell.

Chapter Fourteen.

A Suspicious Patient.

There is plenty of food for the student in the dispositions of the sick, and the way they bear their pains.

Ralph Elthorne’s was an exceptional case, and his moods were many. The principal feeling with him, in the intervals when he was free from pain, was one of irritation against fate for selecting him to bear all this trouble and discomfort. Illness had been so rare with him that at times he found it hard to realise the fact that he was lying there, utterly helpless and forced to depend upon those about him for everything, the result being that he was about as petulant and restless a patient as could be well imagined. In addition, he grew day by day more and more suspicious, lying and watching every look and act of those about him, ready to distort the most trifling things, and fancy that they were all part and parcel of some deeply laid scheme which was to interfere with his peace of mind and tend to his utter dethronement from the old position he had held so long.

On this particular morning he had been lying placidly enough, chatting with his son, while Nurse Elisia was in attendance, till Neil, feeling that the time had now come for his father to be prepared, let drop a few words about Sir Denton’s visit.

The change was almost startling. There was a wildly eager, excited look in his eyes, and suspicion in the tone of his voice, as he exclaimed:

“Coming down? Sir Denton? For what reason? Quick! Tell me why?”

He caught his son’s wrist, and his long thin fingers gripped it firmly as his troubled face, about which the grey hair was growing long since his illness, was turned searchingly to his son.

“Don’t take it like that, my dear father,” said Neil, smiling. “It is not the first time we have had him to see you.”

“No, no! I know all that; but why, why is he coming?”

“I asked him to come down, sir, that is all.”

“Ah! you asked him to come down. Why, why was I not told?”

“For the reason you are showing,” replied Neil quietly. “I was afraid that if you knew you might agitate yourself, and fill your brain with fancies about your state.”

“So would any sick man,” cried Elthorne sharply. “And that is not all. You are keeping a great deal from me in your false wisdom. But you cannot hide it from one who knows intuitively what changes take place in him. I can see and feel it all. I am worse.”

“My dear sir, no,” said Neil, smiling.

“Don’t contradict me, boy,” cried his father fiercely. “Surely I ought to know from my own sensations. I am far worse, and you have sent for Sir Denton because you have reached the end of your teachings, and feel helpless to do any more.”

“You do not give me much credit, father,” said Neil, smiling.

“Yes, yes, I do, boy, a great deal,” said the old man excitedly. “Then it has come to this at last.”

“My dear father, that is what I feared, or I should have spoken to you sooner. I assure you that you have no cause for alarm.”

“Words, words, words,” cried Mr Elthorne piteously. “The case is absolutely hopeless. You know it, and so you have sent for Sir Denton again.”

“My dear father,” began Neil, taking his hand. “Be silent sir,” cried the old man fiercely, “and let me speak.”

“Then, my dear patient,” said Neil, “I must insist upon your listening to me calmly and patiently;” but Mr Elthorne paid no heed and went on.

“I’m not going to blame you, boy, I suppose you have done your best, everything that you have been taught.”

Elisia glanced at Neil in spite of herself, and it was a commiserating look, but a feeling of elation ran through her as she saw his calm, patient, pitying look as she quitted the room.

“Indeed I have done everything possible, father,” he said quietly.

“Yes, yes; all you knew, boy; all you knew.”

“And I have been able to do more perhaps than a surgeon who visited you would have achieved, through always being on the spot.”

“But your knowledge is limited, of course, boy.”

“Yes, I am afraid so,” replied Neil sadly.

“I’m not blaming you. Very patient with me, my boy. So has she been. Nurse!” he called. “Nurse!”

He turned his head a little so as to look over the back of the couch, for he had not seen that they were alone; and then, as he strained his neck a little to fix his eyes upon the door which communicated with the dressing room, it was painful to see the state of utter helplessness to which the strong man had been reduced. He could move his hands and arms, but the complete want of power elsewhere was so apparent to himself now that he uttered a groan of despair, and looked back imploringly at his son.

“What had I done?” he muttered. “What had I done?”

“My dear father,” whispered Neil; but the old man turned from him again impatiently.

“Nurse,” he cried, “nurse!” and he beat, with a stick that was ready to his hand, impatiently upon the floor.

“I will go for her,” said Neil eagerly; but there was no need. Nurse Elisia had faithfully devoted herself to the service of her patient; his call had been heard, and she came in quickly and silently, to glide toward the couch, her eyes the while scanning the sufferer questioningly, as if asking what had occurred to cause the summons.

“There is nothing wrong, nurse,” Neil felt moved to say, as he saw the questioning look.

“What?” cried Mr Elthorne, turning his eyes fiercely upon his son. “There is, nurse, and that is why I summoned you. Look here, Neil; my body may be half dead, but my head is clear. I am not imbecile yet, and I will not be treated like a child. It is hard, very hard, that even one’s own son sinks his relationship in the professional man, and forgets that he is dealing with his father, who has become to him only a patient.”

“My dear father!” cried Neil, smiling, “are you not a little hard on me?”

“No, no!” cried the old man irritably. “You are deceiving me, for my good as you call it, and as you owned a little while back.”

“Indeed, no,” said Neil quietly. “I only owned to keeping back the fact that Sir Denton was coming down till the morning of his visit, so as to save you from brooding over it and getting anxious.”

“Well, what is that but deceiving me as I say, and treating me as a child?”

“Surely not, my dear father.”

“I say it is, and it is cruel. I want to trust you, but you all, even to Isabel, join in cheating me, for my good as you are pleased to call it.”

Neil glanced at the nurse, who met his eyes, but, quick as lightning the sick man raised his hand, half menacingly, at his son.

“Hah!” he cried, “don’t try to corrupt her, and induce her to join your conspiracy; I can read your looks—‘Don’t contradict him.’ She is honest; I can trust her. You will tell me the simple truth, nurse, will you not?” he said, holding one hand over the back of the couch toward her.

She stepped nearer, and took the extended hand. “Indeed, I will, sir,” she said gently; and then, with a smile, “unless, sir, I were forbidden.”

“What?” he cried, withdrawing his hand.

“There might be a crisis in your illness when your medical adviser felt it was absolutely necessary, for your own sake, to keep back something of your state.”

“Hah!” he cried bitterly, “all alike—all alike. I thought I could trust you.”

“You can trust me, sir, to be your faithful servant, who is striving to help your recovery.”

He looked at her with the lines about the corners of his eyes very deep, but her frank, ingenuous look disarmed him, his face softened, and he said gently: “Yes, I can trust you, nurse. God bless you for a good, patient soul. And now, tell me—there cannot be such a crisis as that of which you speak—surely I should feel something of it if impending—”

He did not finish his sentence but looked piteously up at the nurse, whose smile of encouragement chased his dark thoughts away again, and he once more raised his hand.

“Yes,” he said gently. “You will tell me the truth. Sir Denton is coming down—to see me—to-day. It means that, though I do not suffer more, I am much worse?”

“Indeed, no, sir; and you are agitating yourself without cause.”

“Agitating myself without cause,” he muttered softly as he glanced at his son, and then quickly back at the candid face bent over him, while Neil’s heart beat more heavily, and there was a dreamy sensation of intense joy at his heart as he saw how full of faith and trust his father seemed.

“You are steadily getting better, sir,” continued Elisia, and her soft, low voice was full of a tender sympathy for the broken man who clung to her hand.

“Is that the truth?” he said, very slowly and impressively. “Don’t you deceive me, it would be too cruel. You will tell me all?”

She bent down over him a little lower so that he could gaze full in her clear, frank eyes, and there was a curious sense of swelling in Neil’s breast, and a jealous pang of despair as he clutched the arm of the chair tightly and thought of Alison, while the silence in the room seemed to be prolonged.

It was Ralph Elthorne who broke that silence, and Neil started back to the present, for his imagination had been going rapidly astray.

“Yes,” he said quietly; “it is the truth.”

He paused again for a few moments.

“You need not tell me,” he continued, “but, answer this: and I shall quite recover—the use—of my limbs—and get about—again—as before?”

Nurse Elisia did not remove her eyes from those which gazed into hers with such fierce question; but her own grew cloudy and seemed to darken with sadness and pity for the suffering man.

“Answer me,” he said imperiously.

She turned quickly to Neil.

“No,” cried Mr Elthorne; “don’t ask him what you are to say. Speak out—the truth.”

She bent lower over him with her eyes brimming over now, a couple of drops falling upon the invalid’s breast as he clung spasmodically to her hand.

“You cannot lie,” he said hoarsely. “The truth—the truth?”

Again there was a painful silence, and Neil clasped his hands together as his arms rested upon his knees, and he closed his eyes and let his head sink down, listening intently for the sentence which Nurse Elisia had been called upon to deliver. And at last she spoke, her low, soft voice thrilling father and son: “God has spared your life,” she almost whispered, but every word was painfully audible, “and you retain the greatest gift to man—the full possession of your mental powers.”

“Yes, yes,” he whispered. “Go on—go on.”

“You will soon, now, be sufficiently strong to be out and about once more, but—”

“Go on,” he panted—“go on.”

“Forgive me, dear Mr Elthorne, for saying it. You force it from me.”

“Yes, yes; go on,” he panted—“the truth—the truth. I shall be out and about, but—”

“Never again as of old,” she continued; and low as her words were, they rang out to the ears of the listeners; “never again as of old.”

As she uttered this last word of what was almost as painful as a death sentence to such a man as Ralph Elthorne, a sob seemed to be torn from his breast, and Neil sprang up as if expectant of some fresh seizure. But his father made a sign which arrested him, and lay back gazing straight before him till many moments had elapsed. Then his lips parted, and they heard him say in a whisper:

“A helpless cripple—I? Yes, it is the truth—the truth.”

Chapter Fifteen.

A Tempting Offer.

“Never again as of old.”

The words seemed to quiver in the silence of the sick chamber as Nurse Elisia uttered what, to the sufferer, sounded like a sentence, the more terrible as coming from one so grave, calm, and unimpassioned as the beautiful woman who stood before him; and as he lay, gazing wildly at the speaker, Neil saw his father’s eyelids tremble and then slowly drop over the dilated eyes, while his worn, thin, wrinkled face was contracted. But he opened his eyes again, and clung tightly to the nurse’s hand.

“Yes,” he said firmly, “that is the truth. Thank you, nurse, thank you. God bless you for what you have done for a poor helpless cripple.”

He drew her down toward him as he spoke till he could kiss her brow, and then, as she rose, he released her hand.

“Thank you,” he said quietly; “thank you. Yes, that is the truth. But I shall be out again, Neil, weak in body, but not imbecile. I shall still be the Squire, boy. I am the Squire. Now, tell me: why is Sir Denton coming down?”

“Simply for me to ask his opinion, father,” said Neil, seating himself again, and resisting the temptation to offer the nurse a chair. But before he could continue it seemed as if his thoughts had been communicated to the patient, who turned toward her.

“Sit down, nurse,” he said. “I am wearing you out with attending on me.”

“Indeed no, Mr Elthorne—” she began.

“Sit down,” he cried imperiously, and she quietly obeyed.

“Now go on, Neil.”

“Of course I have studied your case very hard,” said the son, “and I have certain ideas that I should like to test. I believe they would strengthen you, but I will not do anything without getting my opinions endorsed by a man of greater experience.”

“Humph! That’s sensible; eh, nurse?”

She bowed gravely.

“So I wrote to Sir Denton at length, telling him what I had arrived at, and asking him to come down the first free day he had, or, I should say, the first time he had a few hours, to see you, and give me his advice.”

“Is that all?” said Mr Elthorne sharply.

“Everything, father.”

“Humph! Well, that’s right, my boy, quite right. Don’t experiment upon me,” he said, with a painful laugh. “After fighting through all this I can’t afford to go backward. Keep the experiment for some poor hospital patient.”

The words jarred on Neil, and he glanced quickly at the nurse, to see that there was a pained look in her eyes, but it passed off as she saw that she was observed.

“Well, when do you expect him?” said Mr Elthorne.

“Almost directly, sir.”

“And why was I not told?”

“For fear of agitating you, and setting you brooding over it. Besides, I was not sure when he would come down.”

“Humph! Well, don’t treat me as if I were a child, boy. I can think if I can’t walk. And I must be got out now. Has that chair come down?”

“Yes.”

“That’s right. I’ll be carried down on Friday when my girls come. If they call before then they are to be brought up. No, no; I know what you are going to say—that they will talk too much. It will do me good to hear Saxa’s chatter and Dana’s prattle. When did you see them last?”

In spite of himself Neil glanced at the nurse as he answered:

“I hardly know. On Sunday, I think.”

“You hardly know! On Sunday, you think! My dear boy, what a dreamer you have become! Lucky for you that Saxa is what she is.”

It was hard work for Neil to keep his eyes averted from the nurse. “What will she think?” he said to himself.

The sound of wheels on the drive put an end to the conversation, Neil hurrying out to welcome the great surgeon, who declined all refreshment until after he had heard full particulars of the progress of the case and seen the patient.

“I could not have done differently,” said Sir Denton at last. “You found Nurse Elisia invaluable, of course?”

“Invaluable.”

“Then now let us go up and see him.”

Neil led the way to where Ralph Elthorne lay helpless, but with his eyes gazing keenly at him as they entered.

“Ah, good-morning, Mr Elthorne,” cried Sir Denton cheerily. “Good-morning, nurse. Now, sir, you know why I have come?”

“Yes, my son has told me,” replied the injured man, watching his visitor’s expression. “Well? Am I worse?”

“No, sir; much better. There is no doubt of that. There is a vigour in your manner and speech that is most satisfactory.”

“But I am always to be a helpless cripple?” said Elthorne bitterly.

Sir Denton did not reply for a few moments, but sat gazing in the patient’s eyes.

“You wish me to answer that question?” he said at last.

“Of course.”

“Then I will. I can answer a man of your strength of intellect, Mr Elthorne. Yes, sir. No surgical skill could restore you.”

He stopped short and watched the patient intently. “That’s well,” he went on. “You bear the announcement manfully. Quite right, for your life has been saved, Mr Elthorne; and with the palliatives that mechanical skill can supply you with, you ought to and can enjoy many years of useful life. Your son has thoroughly explained to me his intentions regarding your future treatment, and I fully endorse his ideas. They will benefit you, but do not expect too much.”

“Condemned to a life of helplessness!” muttered Elthorne in a low voice.

“No, sir, you have your brain intact,” said Sir Denton. “Thank God for that.”

“Yes,” said Elthorne, gripping the surgeon’s hand, “thank God for that. I will not repine, Sir Denton, for I can think, and will, and be obeyed. Do you hear, Neil? and be obeyed. The head is right.”

“Yes, and the heart, Mr Elthorne. So no despair, sir. Meet your trouble like a man. You can be a successful general yet in the battle of life.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“My dear Mr Elthorne, I wish I could hold out hopes of an ultimate recovery of the use of your limbs, but, with a man like you, a frank, open statement is best. You know the worst, and you can get over the difficulties. I can say no more, unless I deliver a eulogy upon your son’s skill.”

“Don’t do that,” said the invalid grimly; “he is conceited enough already.”

“Then I will leave you now and ask for a little refreshment. I have had nothing but a cup of tea since my dinner last evening.”

He rose, shook hands, and then turned to Nurse Elisia.

“I miss you sadly, nurse, but I suppose you cannot be spared for the present.”

“Spared?” cried Elthorne quickly. “No, no; certainly not.”

“But I want her in my ward, Mr Elthorne,” said Sir Denton, smiling.

“Yes, after a time. But not yet. I am so helpless at present.”

“Well, well, we shall see,” said Sir Denton pleasantly. “It is mutually satisfactory. Nurse was suffering from our close London hospital air, and overworked. The change here has worked wonders. Good-bye, Mr Elthorne. I congratulate you upon the skill your son has shown.”

He shook hands, and left patient and nurse together, descending with Neil to the drawing room, where Isabel, Alison, and Aunt Anne were waiting to hear his report.

“Oh, I am glad,” cried Aunt Anne, wiping her eyes; and then: “You think he can do without the nurse now?”

Alison gave her a furious look, which did not escape Neil.

“Eh? Do without the nurse?” cried Sir Denton. “I did not say so. No, my dear madam, her attention is more necessary than ever, I am sorry to say.”

Aunt Anne’s plump countenance bespoke her disappointment.

“You are sorry to say?” she said.

“Yes, my dear madam, for I want her back in town.”

Lunch was at an end, and the carriage at the door. Sir Denton shook hands and went out into the hall with Neil, took up his hat, set it down again, looked at his watch, and replaced it.

“About half an hour to spare, eh, Elthorne?”

“Yes, quite.”

“Take me down the garden, then, where I can see flowers growing. God bless them! I wish I were a gardener. I want to speak to you.”

Neil led the way down a sunny walk, beneath an ancient red brick wall, the old surgeon looking sharply about him till they reached a sundial standing upon a moss-eaten stone. Here he paused and rested his elbow on the copper disk, like a modern figure of Time.

“Neil Elthorne,” he said, “I like you.”

Neil smiled.

“The feeling is mutual, Sir Denton.”

“I know it, my dear boy. You are my favourite pupil, and I want to see you rise. Now, do not be startled. I have been requested to select an able man who promises to be eminent to send out to Black Port.”

“On the west coast of Africa?”

“Yes. To establish a hospital there—a cosmopolitan hospital in which government is interested. It is a terrible place, but a medical man knows how to take care of himself. He would have to engage for five years; the pay is very high; and he would have to devote himself to his task, above all in trying to ameliorate—cure if he can, and I believe it possible—the local disease, which is increasing fast. I do not conceal from you that there will be risks; but the man who goes out there for a few years and works, will come back to be loaded with honours, and take a very high position in his profession. A knighthood will probably follow. If I were a young man I would go, but I must content myself at my age with my ward in London. Now, then, there is plenty of time for consideration, but I should like to go back with some idea. I have not spoken yet to a soul, and I need not tell you that it would be a wrench to part with you; but it is your opportunity, and, as I have your future success at heart, I want to see you rise. Will you go?”

“I, Sir Denton? It is the opening for a physician.”

“As much for a surgeon, my dear boy. He must be both. You are as good a surgeon as I am.”

“Oh, Sir Denton!”

“You need not exclaim. I am not blind. I have had vast experience, but I am getting old and weaker. You have all that my experience has taught you, and, in addition, youth and a thoughtful, originating brain. I tell you frankly, because you are not a weak fool who would be puffed up: long before you are my age you will stand far higher than I do. I don’t want to send you out there because I am jealous of you,” he added laughingly.

“But I should not be equal to the task from the medical point of view.”

“Nonsense, my lad! If I wanted medical help, I would far rather come to you for it than to any man in our hospital. Now, don’t decide rashly; take time to think it over. You would not have to go for two or three months. There, I need say no more save repeating this: it is a terrible place from a health point of view, but the man who goes will be able to do something to lessen the risks, and government will help him in his movements for sanitation. Now, I must be off. Pick me a few flowers. Aha! That is charming,” he cried, as he saw Isabel waiting with a bunch she had hastily cut in one of the houses. “Thank you, my dear child. Those shall stand in water in my room in memory of a delightful visit. I envy you your life in this charming old place. Good-bye.”

He shook hands with Isabel again, and walked back to the carriage with Neil, who looked very thoughtful.

“You can write and ask any questions,” said Sir Denton, “and in a week you will give me your decision.”

“I will give it you now, Sir Denton,” said Neil gravely. “It is no.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite.”

“You will not alter your mind?”

“No; I shall stay in England—with you.”

“I am very sorry, Neil Elthorne, for some things—very glad for others. The first is for you—the latter for myself. Good-bye. Tell him to go fast.” The horses sprang off, and Neil stood thinking in the carriage drive.

“A lady in the case,” said Sir Denton. “Well! it is human nature, and I am not sorry—for both their sakes. He loves her, and some day he will come and tell me.”

At that moment Neil turned to re-enter the house, and his eyes lighted upon Nurse Elisia at the first-floor window watching the departing carriage. Their eyes met, and she drew back.

Neil sighed, and then felt a spasm of pain shoot through him, for he saw that his brother was close at hand, and that he must have seen the direction of his eyes, for there was a frown upon his brow which was there still as he said roughly:

“The old man’s gone, then. I suppose he’ll charge a pretty penny for coming down all this way?”

Neil looked at him in surprise for the moment, but directly after he felt that his brother had merely spoken to conceal his thoughts, and he was thinking this as he replied:

“Charge? No. I shall give him a check for the railway fare. He would look upon it as an insult if I offered him a fee.”

Chapter Sixteen.

How Elisia became a Nurse.

The bedroom was bright with flowers and the many touches given by a thoughtful woman’s hand, to which was due the sweet fragrance in the air.

“But you are better to-day, sir?”

“No, nurse, no. Perhaps better in body, but not in spirit. You cannot understand it. I seem to be a prisoner chained down. My body is here, and my mind is everywhere about the place with my old projects.”

“Shall I read to you, sir?”

“Read? Yes; I like to hear you read. You are a strange nurse, to be able to read with so much feeling. Get a book. Something good.”

“What would you like to-day?”

“Anything. Who’s that? Go and see. So tiresome, disturbing me like this.”

Nurse Elisia went to answer the light tap at the door, and as she opened it Aunt Anne appeared, and was sweeping by her, when her brother cried, “Stop!”

“But I have some business to transact with you, Ralph,” said the lady pleadingly.

“I cannot help it. Go away now. I cannot be disturbed.”

“Oh, very well, Ralph. I will come up again,” said Aunt Anne in an ill-used tone.

“Wait till I send for you,” said her brother sourly.

“It’s all that woman’s doing,” said Aunt Anne to herself, as she swept down the corridor. “Oh, if I could find some means of sending her away.”

“It seems as if it were my fate to make enemies here,” said Nurse Elisia to herself, as she stood waiting with a book in her hand. “It is time I left, and yet life seems to have been growing sweeter in this quiet country home.”

Her eyes were directed toward the window, by which a little bookcase had been placed; and, as she looked out on the beautiful garden, there was the faint dawn of a smile upon her lip, but it passed away directly, leaving the lips white and pinched, while a curiously haggard and strange look came into her face. She craned forward and gazed out intently; there was a cold dew upon her forehead, and the hand which took out her kerchief trembled violently.

She drew back from the window, but, as if compelled by some emotion she still gazed out. Ralph Elthorne did not notice the change in the nurse’s aspect, but illness had made his hearing keen, and he said sharply:

“Who is that coming up to the front?”

“Miss Elthorne, sir.”

“But I can hear two people.”

“A gentleman is with her.”

“What gentleman? what is he like?”

There was a strange singing in Nurse Elisia’s ears, as, with her voice now perfectly calm, and her emotion nearly mastered, she described the appearance of the visitor so vividly that Elthorne said at once:

“Oh, it’s Burwood.”

She looked at him quickly, to see that he lay back with his eyes half closed, musing, with a satisfied expression upon his face, while her own grew wondering of aspect and strange.

For her life at Hightoft had been so much confined to the sick chamber, that she knew very little of the neighbours. The Lydons had often been mentioned in her presence, and, from a hint or two let fall, she had gathered that Isabel was engaged to some baronet in the neighbourhood; but she had not heard his name, which came to her now as a surprise, while the fact of his being in company with the daughter of the house, and the satisfied look upon the father’s countenance, left no doubt in her mind that this was the suitor of his choice.

The current of her thoughts was broken by her patient, who seemed to wake up from a doze.

“Ah, you are there?” he said. “I must have dropped asleep, and was dreaming that you had gone out for your walk, and I could not make anybody hear. Have I been asleep long?”

“Very few minutes, sir. In fact, I did not know you were asleep.”

“Ah, one dreams a great deal in a very short time. You were going to read to me, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Shall I begin?”

“You may as well, though I would as soon think.” There was a gentle tap at the door.

“Come in. No; see who that is, nurse. Why am I to be so worried! I’m not ill now,” he cried peevishly.

She crossed to the door and opened it, to find Isabel standing there, flushed and evidently agitated.

“May I come in and sit with you a little while, papa?” she said.

Elthorne shook his head.

“No,” he cried shortly, “and I will not be interrupted so. Your aunt was here just now. Pray do not be so tiresome, my dear child. I will send for you if I want you. Why have you left Burwood?”

A sob rose to Isabel’s throat, and as she saw the nurse standing there, book in hand, a feeling of dislike began to grow within her breast.

For why should not this be her task? Why was this strange woman to be always preferred to her? It should have been her office to read to the sick man, and she would gladly have undertaken the duty.

“I am very sorry I came, papa, but I see you so seldom,” she said softly. “Papa, dear, let me come and read to you.”

“No, no,” cried Elthorne peevishly. “Nurse is going to read. Besides, you have company downstairs. Burwood has not gone?”

“No, papa.”

“And you come away and leave him? There, go down again, and do, pray, help your aunt to keep up some of the old traditions of the place. What will Burwood think?”

Isabel gave a kind of gasp, her forehead wrinkled up, and the tears rose to her eyes, but at that moment she saw those of the nurse fixed upon her inquiringly, and in an instant she flushed up and darted a look full of resentment at “this woman,” who appeared to be gratifying a vulgar curiosity at her expense.

“Did you hear me, Isabel?” cried her father, querulously. “Pray, go down. You fidget me. Go down to Burwood, and if he asks, tell him I am very much better, and that I shall be glad to see him soon.”

“Yes, papa,” she said faintly; and turning back to the door, she had her hand upon it, when, moved by an affectionate impulse, she ran back quickly, bent down and kissed him.

“Good girl!” he said. “Good girl! Now make haste down.”

She glanced quickly at the nurse, and the resentful flush once more suffused her cheeks, for those eyes were still watching her, and this time there was a smile upon the slightly parted lips.

The girl’s eyelids dropped a little and she replied with a fixed stare before once more reaching the door and passing out.

“How dare she!” thought Isabel, trembling now with indignation. “She quite triumphs over one. Aunt is right; she is not nice. She seems to contrive to stand between me and papa. It is not prejudice, and I shall be very, very glad when she is gone.” The door had hardly closed upon her, when, in a fretful way, Ralph Elthorne exclaimed:

“Now, go on; go on!”

The nurse began reading directly, an Old World poem of chivalry, honour, and self-denial; and as the soft, rich, deep tones of her voice floated through the room, Ralph Elthorne’s head sank back, his eyes closed, and his breath came slowly and regularly.

But the reader had grown interested in the words she read. The story of the poem seemed to fit with her own life of patient long-suffering and self-denial, and she read on, throwing more and more feeling into the writer’s lines. At last, in the culminating point of the story, her voice began to tremble, her eyes became dim, the book dropped into her lap, and a low faint sob escaped from her lips, as the pent up, long suppressed agony of her heart now broke its bounds, and, as her face went down into her hands, she had to fight hard to keep from bursting into a fit of hysterical weeping.

For, only a short hour before, the deep wound of the past had suddenly been torn open, and memory had come with a rush of incidents to torture her with the recollections of the bygone, of the rude awakening from the golden dream of her girlhood’s first love to the fact that the man who had first made her heart increase its pulsations, the man she had believed in her bright, young imagination to be the soul of chivalrous honour, was a contemptible, low-minded roué. How she had refused to believe it at first, and insisted to herself that all she had heard was base calumny; and she had gone on defending him with indignation till the cruel facts were forced upon her, and in one short minute she had turned from a trustful, passionate, loving girl, to the disillusioned woman, with no hope but to find some occupation which would deaden the misery of her heart.

Since then her life had been one of patient self-denial, at first in toiling among the suffering in the sordid homes of misery in one of the worst parts of London. Here, while tending a woman dying of neglect and injuries inflicted by some inhuman brute, it had struck her that she might enlist the sympathies of the great surgeon whose name had long been familiar, and ask him to come and try to save the woman’s life.

To think with her was to act, and she waited on him humbly and patiently, all the time trembling for the consequence to the injured woman left almost alone. But at last her turn came, and she was ushered into Sir Denton’s presence.

He heard her patiently, and shook his head.

“It is impossible, my dear young lady,” he said sharply. “I can but battle with a few of the atoms of misery in the vast sands of troubled life. From your description of the case, I fear I can do no good, and my time for seeing patients here at home is over, while a score of poor creatures are lying in agony at my hospital waiting their turn.”

She looked at him despairingly, and he spoke more gently.

“I admire and respect the grand self-denial of such ladies as yourself who devote themselves to these tasks, so do not think me unfeeling. It is that I can only attend a certain number of cases every day.”

“But you would go to some wealthy patient,” she cried imploringly, “and I will pay you whatever fee you ask.”

“You wrong me, my dear young lady,” he said gravely. “I would not go to-day to any wealthy or great patient for any sum that could be offered me. I take fees, but I hope my life is not so sordid as that.”

“Forgive me,” she said hastily. “I beg your pardon.”

“Yes,” he said, taking her hand to raise it reverently to his lips, “I forgive you, my child, and I will prove it by seeing the poor woman of whom you speak. Come.”

He led her out to the carriage waiting to take him to the hospital, and a group of the wretched dwellers in the foul street soon after stood watching the great surgeon’s carriage, while he was in the bare upstairs room of the crowded house. He stayed an hour, and came again and again, till the day came when another carriage stopped at that door, and a hushed crowd of neighbours stood around, to see Nurse Elisia’s patient carried out, asleep.

“If I only had come to you sooner!” she said.

“I could have done no more,” replied Sir Denton. “Believe me, it is the simple truth. We can both honestly say that we have done everything that human brain and hands could do.”

They were walking slowly away from the house where the woman had died.

“And now I must speak to you about yourself.”

“About myself?” she said wonderingly.

“Yes; I ask you no questions about your friends, or your reasons for taking up the life to which you have devoted yourself; but I am interested in you and your future. Do you intend to go on attending the sick and suffering?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Good; but not like this. You are young and beautiful, and at all hours you are going about here alone.”

“I have no fear,” she said, smiling. “The poor people here respect me.”

“Yes; and, to the honour of rough manhood, I believe, my child, that there are hundreds who would raise a hand for your protection; but the time will come when you will meet with insult from some drink-maddened brute. You must give it up. Your presence is so much light in these homes of darkness, but—you have interested me, as I tell you.”

She looked at him searchingly.

He read her thoughts and smiled.

“I am speaking as your grandfather might. Let me advise you, my child. This must not go on.”

“I thank you,” she replied; “but I have devoted myself to this life, and I cannot turn back.”

“I do not ask you to turn back,” he said. “You have devoted yourself to the sick and suffering. The duties can be as well performed where you will be safe, and treated with respect.”

She looked at him doubtingly.

“Let me counsel you,” he said. “Come.”

“Where?” she asked, and he held out his hand. “You can trust me,” he said; and he led her to his carriage, and then through the ward of the hospital where he reigned supreme.

It was a few days after a terrible accident at one of the hives of industry, and among other sufferers, some ten or a dozen poor work-girls lay, burned, maimed, and in agony, longingly gazing at the door to see the face of the grey-haired man on whose words they hung for life and strength.

That day he came accompanied by his pale, sweet-faced young friend, in whose beautiful eyes the tears gathered as she went round with him from bed to bed, appalled by the amount of bodily and mental suffering gathered in that one narrow space.

“Well?” he said, a couple of hours later. “Is it too dreadful, or will you help me here?”

“Can I?” she said simply. “I am so ignorant and young.”

“You possess that,” he said gravely, “which no education can impart. Your presence here will be sunshine through the clouds. I should shrink from asking you to come among these horrors, but you have, for some reasons of your own, taken up this self-denying life, and I tell you that you can do far more good to your suffering fellow-creatures here than by seeking out cases in those vile streets. You will be safe from insult and from imposition. We have no impostors here. What do you say?”

She gave him her hand, and the next day Nurse Elisia came from her home—somewhere west, the other nurses said—and returned at night unquestioned, and after a week or two of jealousy and avoidance, as one different to themselves, the attendants one and all were won to respect and deference by acts, not words.

Chapter Seventeen.

“You Insult Me!”

And now Nurse Elisia sat in Ralph Elthorne’s chamber, her face buried in her hands, the memories of her past life rushing back and a sense of misery and despair increasing, so that she felt that the time had come when she must rise and flee from a place which had suddenly become insupportable to her.

Then a change came over her. There was a feeling of passionate resentment, and a desire to do battle against the one who had wrecked her life.

“Shall I stand by and see another’s life destroyed as mine has been?”

But her own misery and despair drove these thoughts away, and her spirit was sinking lower and lower as the complications of her position seemed to increase.

“I cannot stay here,” she said to herself. “It is impossible. I have no part or parcel with these people. I have done my duty, and I must go.”

Suddenly she started as if she had been stung, for her hand had been taken, and Neil Elthorne was bending over her.

“For Heaven’s sake,” he whispered, “don’t! I cannot bear to see you suffer. Tell me, why are you in such grief?”

“Mr Elthorne!” she cried in a low voice, as she glanced toward where the patient lay asleep.

“Yes; Neil Elthorne,” he said huskily. “I cannot bear to see you in such distress. I have fought with it; I have struggled and suffered for months and months now. I felt that it was a kind of madness and that it was folly and presumption to think as I did of one who seemed never even to give me a thought. I came down here. It was to flee from you, and try to forget you, but fate brought you here, and I have had to go on from day to day fighting this bitter fight.”

“Mr Elthorne—your father—are you mad?”

“Yes,” he said excitedly. “Mad; and you have made me so. I know that I am not worthy of you, but listen; give me some hope. Elisia, have pity on me—I love you.”

“No, no; hush, hush!” she whispered excitedly. “It is impossible; it is not true.”

“It is not impossible, and it is true,” he said. “You must have known this for long enough. You must have seen the cruel struggle I have had. Are you so cold and heartless that you turn from me like this?”

“Mr Elthorne!” she cried indignantly; “you take advantage of my helplessness here. I ought to look for your respect and protection as a gentleman, and you speak to me like this—here, with your poor father in this state.”

“Don’t reproach me,” he pleaded. “Have I ever failed in respect and reverence for you from the day we met till now?—You are silent. You know I have not. You know how my love for you has grown day by day as we have worked together yonder—here. You know how I have fought against it till now, when I see you suffering, and I can bear no more.”

“You insult me!” she said indignantly.

“It is no insult for a man to offer the woman he loves his name, and the devotion of his life,” he said proudly. “Am I such a frivolous boy that you speak to me as you do, treating me as if it were some pitiful declaration from one who has uttered the same words to a dozen women? I am a student; my life has been devoted to my profession, and I swear to you that I never gave more than a passing thought to love until you awoke the passion in my breast—and for what? To tell me, when the truth will out, that I insult you! I—I who would die to save you pain—who would suffer anything for your sake—who would make it the one aim of my life to bring happiness to yours. And you tell me I insult you!”

“Yes; it is an insult to take advantage of my position here, sir, at such a time as this. You forget yourself. I am the hospital nurse attending your father. You are the surgeon whose duty is, not only to your patient, but also to me.”

“It is no insult,” he said warmly. “It is the honest outspoken word of the man who asks you to be his wife.”

“Mr Elthorne,” she said coldly, “it is impossible.”

“Why? Can you not give me some hope? I will wait patiently, as Jacob waited for Rachel.”

“I tell you, sir, it is impossible, and you force me to quit this house at once.”

“No, no; for pity’s sake don’t say that,” he cried, catching her hand, but she drew it away, and stood back with her eyes flashing.

“How dare you!” she cried angrily. “You force me to speak, sir. Once more I tell you it is an infamy—an insult.”

“Infamy! Insult!” he said bitterly.

“Yes. Do you suppose I am ignorant of your position here? You ask me to be your wife when in a few more hours the lady to whom you are betrothed will be staying in the house.”

He drew back, looking ghastly, just as there was a soft tap at the dressing room door, and Maria appeared, looking sharply from one to the other.

“I have brought up master’s lunch,” she said. “Shall I bring it in here?”

“No; I will come and see to it first,” said the nurse quickly; and she went into the little room, while Neil walked across to his father’s couch and stood looking down at the worn, thin face as the old man still slept on.

“An insult!” he thought—“the lady to whom I am betrothed!”

He looked round wildly, and a sense of despair that was almost insupportable attacked him as he fully realised his position and the justice of the words which had stung him to the heart.

“But there is something more,” he said to himself, as, with nerves jarred and his feelings lacerated by disappointment, unworthy thoughts now crept in—“there is something more.” And throwing himself into a chair, he sat gazing down at the carpet, recalling bit by bit every look and word of his brother, beginning with the scene upon the staircase on the night of Elisia’s first arrival.

They were thoughts which grew more and more unworthy—thoughts which began to rankle in and venom his nature, as he formed mental pictures of his brother being received with smiles and kindly words.

“I would rather see her dead,” he muttered fiercely; and at that moment the object of his thoughts entered from the dressing room, bearing the little tray with his father’s lunch.

Their eyes met, and as he gazed in the pure, sweet face, the harsh unworthy thoughts passed away, to give place to a sense of misery, hopelessness, and despondency, which humbled him before her to the dust.

“And I dared to think all that!” he said to himself, as he rose and drew back from the couch to give place for her to approach.

At that moment the passion within him burned as strongly, but it was softened and subdued by the better feelings—the tender love which prevailed.

“Forgive me,” he said deprecatingly. “I was nearly mad.”

She made no reply, but stood by the couch half turned from him, and he could see that her lips were working.

“Can you not hear my words?” he continued humbly. “What more can I say? It was the truth.”

She turned to him proudly.

“Mr Elthorne,” she said, “I ask you, as a gentleman, to end this scene. If you have any respect for my position here, pray go.”

He stood looking at her for a few moments, then turned and left the room without a word, giddy with emotion, crushed by a terrible feeling of despair which drove him to his own room.

Here the bitter thoughts came back.

Alison had been impressed from the first, and he was always seeking for opportunities to speak to her. That, then, was the reason, he told himself. She had twitted him with his engagement, but she would not have cast him off for that; and in this spirit a couple of hours went by, during which he paced the room.

Unable to bear the turmoil in his brain, toward the middle of the afternoon he went down and determined on trying to calm the irritation of his nerves by a long walk.

Crossing the garden, he reached the park, and was hesitating as to the direction he should take. Then, in a motiveless way, he went on to a plantation through which a path led toward a beautiful woodland hollow, which was his father’s pride as being the loveliest bit of the park scenery.

Here, just as he reached the edge of the plantation, he caught sight of a figure walking rather quickly toward the woodland, and in a moment he was all excitement again.

“It was the time,” he said to himself. “I was mad to speak to her at such an inopportune moment. She will listen to me now. For she is all that is gentle and sympathetic at heart.”

His steps grew faster, and he was just about to turn to his right, so as to cut off a good corner, and meet the object of his thoughts about a quarter of a mile beyond where she was walking, when he caught sight of his brother going in the same direction as himself, but from another point, and he stopped short with the old sinking sense of misery coming back, and with it the host of bitter fancies.

For there could be no doubt about it, he thought, and not a single loyal honest idea came to his help. She was going toward the woodland, perhaps by appointment, and if not, Alison had seen her, and was hurrying his steps so as to overtake her as soon as she was out of sight.

A curious kind of mental blindness came over Neil Elthorne, and he stopped short in the shelter of the trees, gazing straight before him, till the figure of his brother disappeared just at the spot which Nurse Elisia had passed a few minutes before.

He might have said to himself that there was nothing unusual in the nurse taking that part of the park for the daily walk upon which he had himself insisted, but upon which he had never intruded. And again it might have been accidental that his brother was going in that direction. But, no; the woman he had idolised so long in silence had rejected him coldly, and twitted him with his position. Alison loved her he was sure, and he had gone to meet her. At that hour he was sure of this being the case, and he stood thinking.

Alison was as much engaged as he. Would she listen to him, and would she pass over it in the younger, more manly looking brother?

Human nature is strangely full of weakness as well as strength; and as these thoughts crowded through Neil Elthorne’s brain, it was of the woman he was thinking, not of Nurse Elisia, toward whom for the past two years he had looked up, almost with veneration as well as love. It was the weak woman, not the self-denying, unwearied, patient being who glided from bedside to bedside, assuaging pain and whispering hope and calming words.

Nurse Elisia with her saint-like face was no longer in his thoughts. They were filled by the beautiful woman who preferred his brother to him, and, with a hoarse cry of rage and despair, he strode away, his hands clenched, his brow rugged, and the veins in his temples swollen and throbbing.

For he was realising for the first time in his life the true meaning of the words “jealous hate”; but through it all there was a glimmering of satisfaction that he was not about to meet his brother on his way, and he shuddered as he thought that sooner or later they must encounter after all.

Chapter Eighteen.

A Sore Little Heart.

Neil Elthorne was in his father’s room when Nurse Elisia returned from her walk, looking agitated and strange. He had found the old man fretful and impatient, full of complaints about the way in which he was neglected by those who ought, he said, to respect and love him all the more for his illness.

“You all have an idea that I am weak and helpless,” he cried; “but it is a mistake. I am a little weak, but quite able to manage the affairs of my house.”

“Of course you are, sir,” said Neil.

Elthorne turned upon him fiercely.

“Don’t speak to me again like that, sir,” he cried. “Do you think I want to be humoured like a child?”

Neil made no reply, but let his father finish his complaint, knowing that he would drop asleep afterward, and awaken refreshed and forgetful of all he had said.

He was sleeping peacefully as a child when the nurse entered the room, to stop near the door as she saw that Neil was present.

“Has Mr Elthorne wanted me, sir?” she said, ignoring the scene which had taken place a short time before.

“No; and if he had,” replied Neil bitterly, “He would have been quite willing to wait until you had kept your appointment.”

The words seemed to come in spite of Neil’s efforts to stay them; and as he finished the blood tingled in his cheeks, and he mentally writhed as he saw the look of calm, cold contempt directed at him.

“It was Mr Elthorne’s wish, and your own, that I should go for a walk, sir,” she said gravely.

“To meet my brother?”

She gazed at him half sorrowfully.

“I certainly did meet your brother, sir,” she said; and then stopped short as if scorning to offer any explanation to him, while he stood with his teeth set, wishing that he could have bitten off his tongue before he had stooped to make himself so contemptible and petty in her eyes.

There was a pause for a few moments, and then the nurse spoke.

“Mr Elthorne,” she said, “will you be good enough to set me free? Another nurse could do my duties, and I wish now to return to the hospital.”

“Return? You know it is impossible,” he said. “The consequences to my father would be most serious. You know that as well as I.”

She turned to the patient, and looked at him sadly for a few moments.

“You need not be afraid,” he said coldly. “I shall not address you again. It was a mad dream, and is at an end. I have been awakened at last.”

He left the room, feeling as if he could hardly contain his anger as he asked himself whether other men could be as weak, and if this was all the strength of mind and dignity he had achieved by his years of patient study.

“I spoke to her like some spiteful schoolgirl,” he muttered, as he reached the library, and then threw himself into a chair. “What must she have thought? How could I lower myself so in her eyes?”

He had hardly left his father’s room when there was a quick, soft tap at the door, and as the nurse rose to open it, Isabel appeared.

Her eyes were red as if she had been weeping lately, and she made a few hurried steps toward the couch, and then turned angrily upon the nurse, as a hand was laid upon her arm.

“How dare you?” she cried. “I must and I will speak to papa.”

“I dare,” said Nurse Elisia, smiling, “because he must not be awakened suddenly.”

“You always say that,” cried Isabel; but she lowered her voice. “I must—I will speak to him now.”

“Hush, my child!” whispered Nurse Elisia; “you are angry and hysterical from some trouble. Do not blame me, dear. You know it is my duty to watch over him and save him from every shock.”

“But you try to keep us apart. You try to be mistress here in everything. You try to—”

“No, no, no,” said Nurse Elisia gently, as she passed her arm about the excited girl’s waist, and drew her toward the other door, while Isabel struggled to free herself, but only faintly, and as if a stronger will was mastering hers.

“Come with me to my room,” was whispered in her ear, and then, sobbing weakly, she suffered herself to be led through the other door into the little place devoted to the nurse, where she sank into an easy-chair, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

Nurse Elisia stood gazing down at her pityingly for a few moments, and then sank upon her knees and drew the half resisting little figure toward her, as it was evident that poor Isabel was fighting hard to keep from bursting out into a paroxysm of hysterical cries.

“My poor motherless child!” she whispered; “what have I done that you should insist upon treating me as your enemy?”

“Always—if I wish to go to papa—” panted Isabel with childish vehemence.

“No, no, no, my darling,” whispered the nurse, as if she were trying to soothe some passionate child. “If you think a moment you will see that I only obey my orders. It is to give him perfect rest that nature may strengthen and restore him to you, his child. Come, come, tell me—what is the great trouble? You cannot understand, but I want to be your friend.”

“You—you!” cried Isabel, looking up angrily, as she wrested herself away, and her eyes flashed; but as she gazed on the patient face so close to hers, and saw that the beautiful eyes which looked pityingly in hers were also clouded with tears, her mood changed, and she flung her arms about the nurse’s neck, and buried her face in her breast.

“I am so wretched—so unhappy!” she cried.

“Yes, yes, as if I could not see and feel it,” whispered Elisia. “There, there,” she continued, as she drew the yielding form closer to her breast, and smoothed and caressed the soft, fair hair, till Isabel’s sobs grew fewer, and she looked up half wonderingly, and then clung to her more tightly as Elisia bent down and kissed her lovingly.

“There,” she whispered, “was that the kiss of an enemy?”

“No, no, no,” cried Isabel. “I did not mean it. I tried not to say it, but you seem to—seem to—oh, pray don’t think of what I said!”

“I shall not. I did not mind, for I felt that some day you would know the truth. How could you think that I would be anyone’s enemy! It is my misfortune that I am not liked. I have tried to satisfy your aunt, but she resents my presence here.”

“Yes,” said Isabel naïvely, as she clung more closely to her comforter. “She thinks you are taking her place, and that—”

She stopped short.

“Yes, dear,” said her companion gently; “and—what?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Then I will tell you, dear,” said Elisia sadly. “She thinks that I am a deceitful, scheming woman, who tries to lead your brothers astray from the path your father has mapped out for them.”

“Yes,” said Isabel faintly. “How did you know?”

Elisia smiled.

“Because I am a woman who has seen much of the world, though I am not so very much older than you. Isabel dear,” she whispered, as she held the girl’s cheek close to her own, which now burned, “I want you to trust me. I want you to believe me when I tell you that it is not true.”

“I do believe you,” cried Isabel ingenuously, as she turned and kissed her. “Indeed—indeed I do.”

“I know it, and I feel as if you would always have liked me, only there has been this baseless misunderstanding. Now that is all past, dear, and you are going to trust me. Tell me what is the trouble.” Isabel shook her head.

“There is no need. Forgive me if I trespass on delicate ground, dear, and say that it is because this little heart is very sore.”

Isabel tried to escape, but very feebly, and the sore little heart began to throb as she was held firmly to another which beat more rapidly than was its wont.

“I cannot help understanding a good deal,” was whispered to her gently. “I have not sought to know, but it has come to me. Come, dear, be frank, and let me help you as one who loves you. Yes,” she continued, as she saw the wondering look directed at her; “the little heart is sore because of tender little passages with one who is now crossing the seas.”

“Oh!” sighed Isabel, who fluttered a little as if to escape.

“Yes; that is so,” whispered the nurse; “and now, with poor papa’s wishes to back it up, there has come temptation in the way.”

“Temptation?”

“Yes, dear, with a title and wealth; and is the heart core because it is yielding to circumstances, and trying to forget the absent one who will not be forgotten?”

“Yes,” sighed Isabel, “and it is so hard.”

“Harder for him to return, and see the girl he loved my Lady Burwood.”

“But he shall not,” cried Isabel passionately. “I would sooner die!”

“Ah!”

A long drawn, catching sigh, but not of agony, for there was a restful satisfaction in its tone, and for a few minutes there was utter silence in the room.

“Then you do not care for Sir Cheltnam’s tender words?” said Elisia at last.

“No, no! I hate him!” cried the girl. “He knows so well about poor Tom, and he laughs at it all, and says it was a boy and girl love, and that this is my father’s wish.”

“Yes?”

“And no matter what I say, or how I behave, he persecutes me with his addresses. It is dreadful. Poor papa has promised him that I shall be his wife, and he treats me as if I were his own—as if he were my master—till I feel as if I wish I were dead.”

“So as to break the poor trusting sailor’s heart?”

“No, no, no,” cried Isabel piteously; “don’t, don’t say that.”

“Then never say those foolish, wicked words again, dear.”

“But I am so wretched,” sighed Isabel. “I have wanted again and again to see and talk to papa—to beg him to speak to Sir Cheltnam, and tell him that I have tried so hard to do what he wishes, but that I cannot—indeed, I cannot—though he has set his mind upon it all just as he has upon my brothers marrying Saxa and Dana Lydon and—and,” she cried passionately, “they don’t care for them a bit.” There was another long pause, during which Isabel wept bitterly.

“What shall I do?” she cried at last, gazing piteously in the other’s face.

“Wait, dear.”

“But Sir Cheltnam?”

“You must try and avoid him till your father has recovered his strength, and can bear to hear adverse matters.”

“But if I saw him, and spoke to him gently, and appealed to him?”

“In his condition anything like opposition might bring on a serious attack, dear. Even trifles make him so angry that your brother fears he may sometime have a fit. He is in a very precarious state, Isabel, and a serious matter like this might—I hardly dare tell you what might happen. Come; you said you would trust me. I will help you.”

“But Sir Cheltnam? My aunt thinks she is doing right, and encourages him to come and torture me. What shall I do?”

“Wait and trust to me?”

“But it so hard.”

“Hush! There is someone in the next room.” Elisia rose, and entered the bedchamber.

“Oh, you are there,” said Aunt Anne shortly. “I am quite sure that my poor brother ought not to be left alone so long.”

“I was in the next room, madam, and if he had spoken a word I should have heard him directly,” said the nurse softly.

“It does not seem like it, for I have been here some time.”

“Excuse me, Mrs Barnett, Mr Elthorne must not be awakened suddenly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Speak lower, if you please, ma’am.”

“Really!” cried Aunt Anne, “this is growing insufferable! My good woman, you quite forget your position here. Are you aware that I am your senior by many years, and have had great experience in a sick room?”

“Possibly, madam. I am not doubting what you say. I am only going by the instructions I received from Sir Denton Hayle. Mr Elthorne must be saved from everything likely to produce a nervous shock.” Aunt Anne looked her up and down with indignant scorn, and then marched—it could hardly be called walking, the movement was so mechanical and studied—straight to the door, and went out without a word.

“Poor woman!” said Nurse Elisia, softly; “and yet she is a sweet, amiable lady at heart.”

She went back to the dressing room to tell Isabel that her aunt had gone, but the room was empty.

Chapter Nineteen.

Maria Causes Trouble.

“For two pins I’d have our things packed up and go back at once, Dan; that I would,” cried Saxa Lydon, as she stood before the long cheval glass in the best bedroom at the Elthornes’. “Here, you, give me that pin off the dressing table.”

The first words were in a low tone to her sister, the latter to Maria Bell, who was playing the part of lady’s maid to the two visitors dressing for dinner; but from a keen interest in the state of affairs, Maria’s ears were preternaturally sharp, and she heard the first words as well.

A handsome diamond pin was fetched and handed to the speaker, who thrust it into the knot of abundant hair, where it glistened like so much dew.

“The place doesn’t seem the same,” said Dana, who had finished dressing and lay back in a chair, arranging and rearranging the folds of her dress.

“Hold your tongue,” whispered her sister. “We don’t want everyone to know.”

She looked significantly at the maid, who, with a most discreet air, ignored everything and went on folding and hanging up dresses in the wardrobe.

“I don’t care who hears!” said Dana. “I’m sick of it. I wouldn’t have come if it hadn’t been for the poor old man.”

“Nor I,” said Saxa, whose anger was getting the better of her discretion. “Anyone would think we were perfect strangers; why, Burwood is ten times as attentive.”

“To you,” said Dana spitefully.

“No, he is not; it is to you. If I were you, I’d give Master Alison such a lesson to-night! I’d flirt with Burwood till I made him half mad with jealousy.”

“That’s the advice I was thinking of giving you,” said Dana with a sneer. “He is always at your heels, or wanting to help you mount or dismount.”

“Oh, come, I like that,” said Saxa, whose face was now scarlet, and she frowned as she gazed at her sister’s reflection in the glass instead of at her own and the bracelets she was attaching to her well-shaped arms. “He was riding by your side all day yesterday.”

“Look here,” said Dana coldly, “if you want to quarrel send away the maid. I don’t want Burwood. You can have him.”

“Thank you. But you might tell the truth.”

“Don’t be a fool!” said Dana, and then, hurriedly, “Hush! don’t let’s quarrel here. But it’s too bad; anyone would think we were nobody at all, and that the boys were not at home.”

“Don’t be a fool yourself,” whispered Saxa, leaning forward and offering a cut glass bottle. Then, aloud, “Scent?” and again, in a low voice, “That minx’s ears are like a fox’s.”

“Thanks,” said Dana, taking the bottle and using it liberally. “Here, what’s-your-name? Maria, have a drop of scent?”

“Oh, thank you, miss,” cried the maid eagerly. “No; don’t take it now,” said Saxa, replacing the scent on the table. “You may empty the bottle when you pack up our things to-morrow.”

“Oh, thank you, Miss Lydon.”

“Got quite well and strong again?”

“Yes, miss, quite, thank you.”

“It was this nurse who attended you, wasn’t it—at the hospital?”

“Yes, miss,” said Maria, tightening her lips and looking vicious.

“Hallo!” said Dana, laughing boisterously. “Look at her, Saxa. I say, used she to drink your port wine and eat your new laid eggs?”

“Oh, I don’t know what she did, miss,” said Maria, in a tone of voice which seemed to say, “Ask me a little more.”

“There, I’m nearly ready,” said Saxa, examining herself in the glass. “I suppose the dinner bell will go directly. Maria doesn’t like nurse. She’s too much of the fine madam—eh, ’Ria?”

“Yes, miss, a deal too much for me.”

“Never mind; she made a better job of you than of the old man. He gets well very slowly.”

“Perhaps nurse knows when she is in a comfortable place, and doesn’t want to go back to London,” said Maria tartly.

“Very likely,” said Saxa coolly. “No love lost between you two, I see.”

“No, Miss Lydon, indeed there is not.”

“Pity,” said Saxa laconically. “Servants ought to be very happy together.”

“I don’t look upon Nurse Elisia as a fellow-servant, miss, and I’m sure she doesn’t as to me.”

“Likely enough. Thinks she is too pretty. There, ’Ria, shall I do?” and Saxa spread out her dress, and swept across the room and back.

“Well done, female peacock!” cried Dana sneeringly.

“You look lovely, miss,” cried Maria. “Pretty?” she continued. “Her pretty? P-f-f! Why, she’s nothing to you two young ladies, only I suppose some people think differently.”

“Eh?” said Dana sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, nothing, miss; only I do say it’s a pity some people think so much of white faced nurses.”

“’Ria has a sweetheart, and he has been making eyes at the nurse and wishing he was an interesting invalid,” said Saxa merrily.

“Oh, no indeed, miss,” cried Maria viciously; “but if I had, it isn’t me as would have such goings on.”

“Ah, well, it isn’t my business,” said Saxa carelessly. “Somebody has been paying her attentions then, I suppose; and nurses like them as other people do.”

Maria tightened her lips and said nothing, but Dana looked flushed and excited.

“Look here,” she said sharply, as if she were speaking to one of her grooms, “what does all this mean?”

“Oh, nothing, miss; it isn’t for me to say, only I don’t like to see such goings on.”

“What goings on?”

“Oh, nothing, miss.”

“But—”

“Let her alone, Dana. What is it to you?”

“But I want to know,” cried Dana sharply, for a faint suspicion had been in her brain for some weeks past consequent upon a sudden change she had noted in Alison; and this suspicion, increased by the maid’s words, was rapidly growing into a certainty.

“Well, want to know,” said her sister. “I say, why doesn’t that dinner bell ring? I’m hungry.”

“Look here, Maria; I’ve always been kind to you when I’ve come here,” said Dana excitedly.

“Yes, miss, always,” said Maria.

“And I always will be, and so will my sister.”

“That means half a sovereign, ’Ria,” said Saxa merrily. “Don’t you let her put you off with a paltry half crown.”

“Then tell me what you mean.”

“Oh, I couldn’t, miss; I couldn’t, indeed.”

“Then there is something,” said Dana, “and—you shall tell me,” she cried fiercely, as, in an Amazonlike fashion, she gripped the woman’s arm. “Now then, you tell me. It’s something about the nurse and—”

“Miss Dana, please don’t. I’m so weak still,” pleaded Maria.

“There, you as good as owned to it. What is it?”

“It’s nothing, miss. I only sus— fancied something.”

“Then speak out,” cried Dana, sharply. “I will know before you go out of this room. Then it was them I saw across the park,” she exclaimed excitedly.

Maria’s eyes twinkled.

“You were thinking something about Mr Alison?”

“O Dan, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” cried Saxa.

“Ought I? Never mind. It was what I suspected, but I wouldn’t let myself believe it. Now, Maria, you speak out. I will know now.”

“I dursn’t, miss.”

“You tell me directly, or it will be the worse for you and for him.”

“I’m sure I don’t know nothing, miss,” said Maria, whimpering, “and you are hurting my arm.”

“And I’m sure you do,” cried Dana, loosening her grip and tearing off her glove. “There,” she said, taking off a ring set with good-sized pearls, “tell me everything and I’ll give you that.”

Maria turned pale with excitement, and her right hand opened and shut.