"You are always kind," answered Mabel, "and it won't be the first time you have turned cook in my behalf. Do you remember, Ben, doing like services for me in Spain, years ago, when you insisted on leaving the ship, and turning courier for us all?"
"Don't I, now?" said Ben, and his face brightened all over. "Didn't Ben Benson? He was a smartish youngster then. Didn't he use to scour their skillets and sasepans, to git the garlic out on 'em? But it wasn't of no use, that ere garlic strikes through and through even hard iron in them countries, and a'most everything you touch tastes on it, but the hard biled eggs that had tough shells to 'em, as I used to bile for you and the poor sick lady—they stood out agin it."
Mabel was looking sadly downward, and a troubled shadow came to her face as she murmured—
"Poor lady—poor lady! How she suffered, and yet how completely her disease baffled the Spanish physicians! That was a hard death."
Ben drew close to his mistress as she spoke. A strange meaning was in his glance, as he said, impressively—
"Lady, that was a strange death. I've seen consumption enough, but it wasn't what ailed her!"
Mabel lifted her eyes and looked anxiously at the honest face bent toward her. "How can you think so, Benson?" she said.
"Because I know who gave that lady her medicine o'nights, when you and the rest on 'em were in bed, and fast asleep; and I know that one time, at any rate, it wasn't of the same color or taste as that the doctor left, and she give it ten times when he told her once. I didn't think much about it at the time, but since then, it's constantly a-coming into my head."
Mabel turned deathly pale, and, yielding to a sudden faintness, sat down.
"You do not think—you cannot think that there was really any neglect?"