“You are ill, poor little child,” in a tender tone.
“Is it morning? The night was so long. It seemed as if the house was burning up.”
“It was the bad fever. Oh, yes, it is day, almost another night. Oh, little one, the good God be praised!”
Mère Lunde dropped down on her knees and repeated a short prayer.
Renée raised her head.
“Oh, it still feels queer. And I am so tired.”
She dropped off to sleep again. Mère Lunde had two potions, one for the fever, one for her general strength, but she would not disturb her now. Sleep was generally a good medicine.
“She has spoken. She is better,” was the mère’s greeting as Denys entered. “But she is asleep now. Do not disturb her.”
Yes, the dreadful purple was going out of her face. He took the limp little hand. It was cooler, though the pulse still beat hard and high. Ah, how much one could come to love and hardly know it until the threat of losing appeared. And he thought of her mother. He could never get it out of his mind but that she had died in cruel neglect, alone and heartbroken. He pressed the slim fingers to his lips, he studied the brow with its soft, light rings of hair, the almost transparent eyelids and long lashes, the dainty nose that had a piquant ending not quite retroussé but suggestive of it, and the small mouth, the lips wide in the middle that gave it a roundness often seen in childhood. She would be a pretty young girl, though it was her soft yet deep and wondering eyes that made her resemble her mother.
When she roused again Mère Lunde administered her potions. She made a very wry face over the bitter one. The good mère put another poultice on her throat and spread it well over her chest; rolling her up again like a mummy. She would have laughed if there had not been a great lump in her throat.