"No, I will soothe you to sleep, and then I shall sleep. Come, precious girl, dry your eyes and let us strive to be quiet for awhile before dinner so no one will suspect. You don't want Aunt Manning's sharp eyes to be looking at you with speculation. She will think we have quarreled."
"She mustn't think that. I will buck up, mother, as Bertie says, and be good."
"And leave everything to the future. To-night and always you will have your mother to love you."
"And to love," returned Anita, kissing her mother's cheek.
They sat together in the dusk till it neared the dinner hour and then they went down, outwardly calm but troubled in their hearts.
CHAPTER XVIII
A Puzzled Patient
The visits to The Beeches now became for Anita a sort of fearful joy. If anyone noticed her solicitous concern for Terrence Wirt no one commented upon it. They were all too busy, too occupied with quite as serious cases to think these attentions anything out of the usual, and attributed them to Anita's compassionate desire to lighten a sufferer's burdens. Bobbie Haynes, provided with an artificial leg, struck out for his own home. As others became better they, too, went away and their places were taken by those more recently hurt, yet Terrence still lingered, for as yet it was not certain that his sight would return. The doctor from London favored a slight operation.
As the days succeeded one another Anita crept closer and closer into the confidence of the man who knew her only as Miss Beltrán, and he grew to look for her coming as the one bright spot in his day.
At last there came a time when Anita felt that she could ask him: "Why did you join the British troops?"