“Io, my dear, where are you? I’ve come to see you,” cried the doctor, the visitor who could never be shut out. Even had his god-daughter been ill in her bed, that would not have excluded the medical man. Io screwed up her courage as best she might, and came forth to greet her old friend, heartily wishing herself back in the solitude of the woods.
“Bless me, my child, what’s the matter?” exclaimed Pinfold, with real concern, when his favourite made her appearance. “You look like a criminal going to be hanged!” Io winced at the terrible word. “You are trembling like an aspen, my girl. What on earth has pulled you down thus?”
Io made a desperate effort to smile and assume a cheerful manner, as she made her old friend sit down on the sofa beside her. “Dear Dr. Pinny, shall I relate some of our adventures?” she said. “First, poor Thud fell from the tat—”
“And lost his teeth and his beauty,” laughed Pinfold. “He wanted me to put the teeth in again; but I told him that they could only be put into a museum.”
Io was well pleased at having diverted attention from her own looks. She then, with a desperate energy which surprised herself, went on to give a description of the alarming night-adventure—Oscar knocked down,seized, and bound to a tree; she herself in the hands of the Shans. Her vivid description elicited many an exclamation from the old doctor.
“I thought that a pleasure-trip would do you good,” cried the kind-hearted man; “but it seems that I was pouring vitriol down my patient’s throat to serve as a tonic! I never bargained for savages and robbers. I hope that Coldstream gave the fellow who saved you a handsome present. And now you must try to forget your fright—or write a novel about it; and you must be well nourished up—àpropos to which the savoury scent from the dining-room tells me that our breakfast is ready.”
Io was not sorry, under the circumstances, that business had delayed Oscar’s return, and that he, at least, would not have to eat his breakfast under the eye of the doctor.
“By-the-by,” said Pinfold, as he poured the hot milk on the suji, “what means this nonsensical report about your and your husband’s leaving Moulmein?”
How often had the Coldstreams to endure the ordeal of such questions during the next few days! They almost dreaded the sight of a European visitor, except that of the chaplain, who had too much consideration to show curiosity. Had there not been so much business to be settled, so many arrangements to make, the Coldstreams would have tried to escape from daily annoyance by making a second excursion.
“One comfort is that to-morrow the English ship comes in,” thought Io, after a day of peculiar vexation. “I shall have the luxury of a nice long letter from my darling mother, who knows nothing yet of our trouble. It will contain some loving token for Christmas, which is now so near, and interesting particulars of dear Jane’s engagement, only briefly mentioned in the last letters. In news from my loved English home I shall find some comfort still.”