"Then will you keep quite still, Captain, until I return? And keep your arm quietly in the sling? The leech said..."
"Never mind what the leech said, run, John ... the sight of myself in that glass there causes me more pain than this stupid scratch. Run quickly, John, for I hear her footstep in the next room.... I'll not move from the edge of this bed, I swear it, if you'll only run."
He kept his word and never stirred from where he sat; but he strained his ears to listen, for through the thin partition wall he could just hear her footstep on the rough wooden floor, and occasionally her voice when she spoke to Betty.
Half an hour later, when John Stich had done his best to valet and dress him, he waited upon her ladyship at breakfast in the parlour downstairs.
She came forward to greet him, her dainty hand outstretched, her eyes anxiously scanning his face.
"You should not have risen yet, sir," she said half shyly as he pressed her finger-tips to his lips, "your poor wounded shoulder..."
"Nay, with your pardon, madam," he said lightly, "'tis well already since your sweet hand has tended it."
"'Twas my desire to nurse you awhile longer, and not allow you to risk your life for me again."
"My life? Nay! I'll trust that to mine old enemy, Fortune: she has ta'en care of it all these years, that I might better now place it at your service."
She said nothing, for she felt unaccountably shy. She, who had had half the gilded youth of England at her feet, found no light bantering word with which to meet this man; and beneath his ardent gaze she felt herself blushing like a school miss at her first ball.