“How you became my nurse,” he persisted quietly. “Please don’t leave that out of your story, Miss Howard.”
She smiled.
“It was sheer necessity, Mr. Barth. You said you spoke no French; neither did I. You were suffering and in need of a doctor at once. I knew of no doctor there but my father, and you assented to my suggestion of him. He will tell you that your ankle was in a bad condition and needed constant care. I knew he was not strong enough to give it, and I telegraphed all over Quebec in a vain search for a nurse. I couldn’t get one; neither, for the sake of a few conventions, could I let you end your days with a stiff ankle. There was only one thing to be done, and I did it.” She stopped for a moment. Then she added, “I only hope I may not have done it too clumsily. It was new work for me, Mr. Barth; but I did the very best I could.”
In her earnest self-justification, she sat looking up at Barth with the unconscious eyes of a child. Barth held out his hand.
“Miss Howard, you must have thought me an awful cad,” he said contritely.
“I did, at first; but now I know better,” she answered honestly. “There was no real reason you should have known I was not an hireling. At first, I resented it, though. I resented it again, when you came here and didn’t recognize me. It seemed to me impossible that you could have spent ten days with me, and forgotten me so completely. It wasn’t flattering to my vanity, Mr. Barth; and I only gained my lost self-respect when you informed me, the other day, that you were still hoping to meet me again.”
He echoed her laugh; but his tone was a little eager, as he added,—
“And that, in my secret thoughts, I used to call you my Good Sainte Anne?”
Nancy shook her head.
“Never that, I fear,” she answered lightly. “The Good Sainte Anne works miracles, Mr. Barth.”