"I am sure you ought to sleep. Let me give you a verse for you to sleep on: I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely.'"
Mrs. Burke gave a little impatient snort.
Rowena added—
"I am going to send Phillips to watch by you whilst I go and see how Vale is. Do try to sleep, dear. Are you warm now?"
"I have been badly scared and shaken," said Mrs. Burke, trying to speak indifferently; "but I shall be myself to-morrow."
Rowena bent down and kissed her, then slipped out of the room.
She found that Vale was recovering, but she wrote a note to the doctor, for she did not like the look of Mrs. Burke, and she asked him to come over early the next morning.
When the next day arrived, Mrs. Burke was tossing on her bed in agony, and before very long, she was in the throes of rheumatic fever. It was so severe that she had to be wrapped in cotton wool from head to foot, and two nurses were brought in by the doctor to attend to her.
Rowena spent most of her time in the sick-room. All the Christmas festivities had to be postponed. At one time the doctor thought his patient would not pull through. He told Rowena that her heart would not bear the strain of the attack. But she rallied wonderfully, and her constant cry through both her conscious and unconscious times was that Rowena should be close to her.
"Keep death away from me, if you can," she whispered once. "Pray. You will be heard. I sha'n't."