"Well," said Elsie nervously, in a tone as if she was repeating a fact with which both of them were familiar, "well, so missis has gone to the hospital!"
She had told him. She trembled for his exclamation and his questions. He made no sound, no movement. Elsie felt extremely uncomfortable. She would have preferred any reply to this silence. She was bound to continue.
"Yes. Missis was that ill that when doctor came for you he took her off instead. I told her I'd see after you properly till you was fetched too, sir." She gave no further details. "I'm that sorry, sir," she said.
Mr. Earlforward maintained his silence. He did not seem to desire any details. He just lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling. The expression on his hollowed face, now the face of a man of seventy, drew tears to Elsie's eyes, and she had difficulty in restraining a sob. The aspect of her employer and of the room, the realization of the emptiness of the rest of the house, the thought of Mrs. Earlforward snatched away into the mysterious and formidable interior of the legendary hospital, were intolerable to Elsie, who horribly surmised that "they" must be cutting up the unconscious form of her once lively and impulsive mistress. To relieve the tension which was overpowering her Elsie began to straighten the rumpled eiderdown.
"I'll run and make you some of that arrowroot, sir," she said. "You must have something, so it's no use you——"
Mr. Earlforward said nothing; then his head dropped on one side, and his eyes met hers.
"Elsie," he murmured plaintively, "you won't desert me?"
"Of course not, sir. But the doctor's coming for you."
"Never!" Mr. Earlforward insisted, ignoring her last sentence. "You'll never desert me?"
"Of course not, sir." His weakness gave her strength.