Even through the terrible scorching heat which seemed to envelop my body I realized that Lillian, as always, was dominating the situation. I could hear the snip of her scissors as she cut away the pieces of burned cloth, and the low-toned directions to Mrs. Durkee, which told me that Lillian already had secured our first aid kit and was giving me the treatment necessary to alleviate my pain until the physician should arrive.
I am sorry to confess it, but I am a coward where physical pain is concerned. I am not one of those women who can bear the torturing pangs of any illness or accident without an outcry. And, struggle as I might, I could not repress the moan which rose to my lips.
"I know, child." Lillian's tender hands held my writhing ones, her pitying eyes looked into mine; but she turned from me the next moment in amazement, for Robert Gordon, the mysterious man who had loved my mother, appeared, as if from nowhere, at her side, twisting his hands together and muttering words which I could not believe to be real, so strange and disjointed were they. I felt that they must be only fantasies of my confused brain.
"Mr. Gordon, this will never do," Lillian said sternly. "I thought I had sent every one out of the room except Mrs. Durkee."
"I know—I am going right away again. But I had to come this time. Is she going to die?"
"Not if I can get a chance to attend to her without everybody bothering me. I am very sure she is not seriously injured. Now, you must go away."
Mr. Gordon fled at once. And Lillian, and Mrs. Durkee worked so swiftly and skillfully that when the physician, a kindly, elderly practitioner from Crest Haven arrived, my pain had been assuaged.
By his direction I was carried to my own room. I must have fainted before they moved me, for the next thing I remember was the sound of the doctor's voice.
"There is nothing to be alarmed over," the physician was saying to a shadowy some one at the head of my bed, a some one who was breathing heavily, and the trembling of whose body I could feel against the bed. "Of course, the shock has been severe, and the pain of moving her was too much for her. But she is coming round nicely. You may speak to her now."
The shadowy some one moved forward a little, resolved itself to my clearing sight as my husband. He knelt beside the bed and put his lips to my uninjured hand.