What was there about the woman—Betty stared at her, frowning in an effort to recollect where she had seen her before. If Bob were only here to help her—Bob! Why, the sick woman before her was the living image of Bob Henderson!
“The Saunders place!” Betty clapped her hand to her mouth, anxious not to excite her patient. “Why, of course, this is the farm. And she must be one of Bob’s aunts!”
As if in answer to her question, the sick woman half rose in bed.
“Charity!” she stammered, her hands pressed to her aching head. “Charity! She was sick first.”
She pointed to an adjoining room and Betty crossed the floor feeling that she was walking in a dream and likely to wake up any minute.
The communicating room was shrouded in darkness like the other, and when Betty had raised the shades she found it furnished as another bedroom. Evidently the old sisters had chosen to live entirely on the first floor of the house.
The woman in the square iron bed looked startlingly like Bob, too, but, unlike her sister, her eyes were dark. She lay quietly, her cheeks scarlet and her hands nervously picking at the counterpane. When she saw Betty she struggled to a sitting posture and tried to talk. It was pitiable to watch her efforts for her voice was quite gone. Only when Betty put her ear close down to the trembling lips could she hear the words.
“Hope!” murmured the sick woman hoarsely. “Hope—have you seen her?”
“Yes, she asked for you, too.” Betty tried to nod brightly. “I’m going to do a few things here first and get you both something to eat, and then I’m going for a doctor.”
Miss Charity sank back, evidently satisfied, and Betty hurried out to the kitchen. The wood box was well-filled and she had little difficulty in starting a fire in the stove. Like the rest of the farm homes, the only available water supply seemed to be the pump in the yard, and Betty pumped vigorously, letting a stream run out before she filled the teakettle. She thought it likely that no water had been pumped for several days.