“Good!” and I moved before the fire a bench which served as a chair. “Now I will bring in my companion.”
“Your companion?” he repeated, looking about with a snarl.
“Yes—and if you touch the gold-piece I will kill you. Sit down in yonder corner.”
He backed into the corner indicated and sat down, staring vacantly. In an instant I was outside, and lifting my comrade tenderly in my arms, bore her back into the cottage and closed and barred the door.
“Sit here, my love,” I said, and placed her on the bench. “Now, let us see the ankle.”
I knelt before her and with fingers which trembled so that I could scarcely guide them removed the shoe and cut away the stocking. The ankle,—which should have been so slim, so graceful,—was cruelly swollen.
“It will be better in a moment,” I said, and dipping the remnant of the stocking into the steaming water, held it close against the hurt.
“Oh, that is heavenly!” she murmured, and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
I bathed the ankle thoroughly, immersing it in water almost scalding, and every instant I joyed to see the lines of pain in her face soften and disappear.
“And now,” I said at last, “we will bandage it tightly and it will not pain you—only of course you cannot use it for some days.”