"Go wash your hands in it while I use your telephone. Don't be frightened, but that's poison-oak, and I want to prevent it from hurting you."
"Can it—kill me?" Her face quivered.
"No. And it shan't do you any harm if I can help it. But be quick as you can. Keep your hands in the basin till I get what I'm sending out for."
Without another word Angela ran into the next room, and so to the bath. As she poured ammonia into the marble basin, feeling a little faint, she could hear Nick's voice at the telephone: "Send to the nearest drug store for some gamgee tissue, a bundle of lint, and a pint bottle of lime-water. This is a hurry call."
Angela's heart was thumping. It was horrible that there should be some one in the world—a lurking, mysterious some one—who planned in secret to do her dreadful harm. The incident seemed unreal. Whom did she know, on this side of the world, who could hate her so bitterly? She was afraid, as of eyes that she could not see, staring through the dark.
Nick called from the sitting-room: "How do you feel? Are you all right?" And when she answered "Yes," tried to reassure her. It began to look as if there were much to fear. Luckily he had come in time. Was she sure she hadn't held the leaves near her face? No. Then she might hope that there would be no trouble now. Already he had bundled the bunch of fire into a newspaper and it had been taken out of the room to be destroyed, like a wicked witch. Luckily there were people who could touch poison-oak and suffer no harm. Nick told Angela he "felt in his bones" that no evil thing could have power over her.
Soon, almost before she could have believed it possible, the messenger arrived with a strange assortment of packets from the chemist. Nick shouted that all was ready, and she went back to the sitting-room, her hands dripping ammonia. Kate had been summoned, and having just appeared, was about to empty a large flower bowl, which Nick had ordered her to wash. The Irish girl was pale, and looked dazed. She knew nothing yet of what had happened, but guessed at some mysterious accident to her mistress.
A great bouquet of roses which Nick had sent that morning now lay on a side table, and into the flower bowl they had adorned he poured the lime-water. In this he soaked the gamgee tissue (Angela had never heard of the stuff before), and bade her hold out both hands. Then he bound them quickly and skilfully, intent on what he was doing, though his head was bent closer to Angela's than it had ever been before, and the fragrance of her hair was sweet, as in his dreams of angels. As for her, she felt a childlike confidence in his ability to cure her, to save her from harm.
Over the tissue, wet with lime-water, Nick wrapped bandages of lint; and the operation finished, Angela was as helpless as if she had pulled on a pair of tight, thick gloves whose fingers would not bend.
"Does this mean that we aren't to go to-night?" she asked mournfully.