'About the Master?' she said, turning pale.
'No; it has nothing to do with the Master. I asked for him at the lodge as I came out, and they told me he had had a good night. Phyllis Brannan is with him, and she is a host in herself.'
Lucy tossed her head.
'Oh, you know Nurse Brannan?' she said coldly.
'Yes,' he said gravely; 'I have reason to know Phyllis, best and kindest of nurses. If ever there was a woman true as steel, it is Phyllis Brannan.'
Lucy sniffed impatiently. She hadn't come out without her bath at seven o'clock in the morning to hear the praises of Nurse Brannan. She was quite sure she would be quite as good a nurse after a reasonable probation, and she wouldn't keep her hair so untidy.
'What had you got to tell me?' she said shortly.
It was not exactly encouraging; but Edgell smiled and drew her away from the gate and up the lane, and then she discovered that he still held her hand.
She drew it away sharply and stopped. She really didn't care to walk any farther with him if he were only going to talk about Nurse Brannan. She had been fighting a dreadfully hard battle with herself all night, all the previous day—ever since that conversation with Eric—and she had worked herself up, like the martyrs of old, for a big sacrifice, for the stake, if need be; and now, after all that struggle, there wasn't going to be any stake at all.
Nurse Brannan was going to the stake, perhaps. She was ready at any time to do all sorts of disagreeable things without making any fuss about them.