“I could have reached it alone,” said the “Pet,” “if you'd left me alone.”
“Thank Heaven, we're saved!” said Rand gravely.
“AND WITHOUT A ROPE,” said Miss Euphemia significantly.
Rand did not understand her. But, as they slowly returned to the summit, he stammered out the always difficult thanks of a man who has been physically helped by one of the weaker sex. Miss Euphemia was quick to see her error.
“I might have made you lose your footing by catching at you,” she said meekly. “But I was so frightened for you, and could not help it.”
The superior animal, thoroughly bamboozled, thereupon complimented her on her dexterity.
“Oh, that's nothing!” she said, with a sigh. “I used to do the flying-trapeze business with papa when I was a child, and I've not forgotten it.” With this and other confidences of her early life, in which Rand betrayed considerable interest, they beguiled the tedious ascent. “I ought to have made you carry me up,” said the lady, with a little laugh, when they reached the summit; “but you haven't known me as long as you have Mornie, have you?” With this mysterious speech she bade Rand “good-night,” and hurried off to the cabin.
And so a week passed by,—the week so dreaded by Rand, yet passed so pleasantly, that at times it seemed as if that dread were only a trick of his fancy, or as if the circumstances that surrounded him were different from what he believed them to be. On the seventh day the doctor had staid longer than usual; and Rand, who had been sitting with Euphemia on the ledge by the shaft, watching the sunset, had barely time to withdraw his hand from hers, as Mrs. Sol, a trifle pale and wearied-looking, approached him.
“I don't like to trouble you,” she said,—indeed, they had seldom troubled him with the details of Mornie's convalescence, or even her needs and requirements,—“but the doctor is alarmed about Mornie, and she has asked to see you. I think you'd better go in and speak to her. You know,” continued Mrs. Sol delicately, “you haven't been in there since the night she was taken sick, and maybe a new face might do her good.”
The guilty blood flew to Rand's face as he stammered, “I thought I'd be in the way. I didn't believe she cared much to see me. Is she worse?”