“She is here, sir, awaiting your decision.”
“Very well; I will see her.”
He called softly after the secretary as the latter was leaving the room.
“Nestle!”
“Yes, Mr Balm?”
“You are a good fellow, Nestle.”
The secretary bowed gravely and disappeared.
He returned in a few moments, ushering in a little worn woman, dressed in decent black, and neither common nor pretentious in appearance. Her age might have been fifty, but the wrinkles of a hundred years lined her forehead, and the very tragedy of death in life haunted her dim eyes. Gilead, always sensitive to sorrow, rose and, motioning Nestle to leave them alone together, placed a chair for the visitor and seated himself where he could best command without embarrassing her.
“Am I right, Mrs Baxter,” he said, “in assuming that you are a nurse?”
Something neatly formal in her habit may have suggested the hypothesis. It was a correct one in any case.