Then followed days and nights of weary watching and nursing.
“He may pull through yet, madam,” said the good old doctor, addressing Mrs. Varley, but peering wonderingly at Mary through his spectacles. He had been told that the sudden death of a young lady was the cause of the illness. Who, then, was this other young lady so devoted in her attentions to the sufferer? “He may pull through yet, madam; he has a constitution of iron and the frame of a giant, not to speak of the two angels who watch over him day and night!” This in a rich Irish brogue, with a gallant bow right and left to the two ladies.
And Frank did pull through. Gradually the fever in his brain subsided, and though weak and helpless as a child, the doctor pronounced him out of danger.
But with returning consciousness came back the sense of sorrow and loss, and Mrs. Varley’s heart ached for her son as she saw the look of utter blank misery and despair settle down upon his once bright, happy face. “Get him to talk of his sorrow” had been the doctor’s advice, and gently and gradually his mother had led him on to speak freely of poor Amy and her terrible ending.
“We all suffer with and for you, my son,” said Mrs. Varley, sitting by Frank’s easy chair in the early twilight, the glow from the fire alone lighting the room, “but my feeling for you does not prevent me feeling for someone else very near and very dear to me, and who is just now suffering as much as, or, perhaps, more than you.”
Frank’s eyes expressed his wonder. Of whom could his mother be speaking? Wrapped up in his own misery, he had had no thought for the sorrows of others.
“Don’t try to talk to me, Frank, dear,” continued his mother. “You must forgive me if I say that sorrow is apt to make one selfish and unobservant. Otherwise you would have noticed not only the grief and anxiety in my face, which has made an old woman of me the last few weeks, but also the grief in a sweet young face which has been watching yours very sadly for many a day and night.”
“Mother, mother,” exclaimed Frank, passionately, for now his mother’s meaning was unmistakable. “Why did you bring the girl here? You knew it was useless. Why didn’t you leave me here to die? God knows I have nothing left to live for now!”
“Miss Burton did not come for you alone, Frank, she came for my sake also. She has been to me as a daughter in my trouble, and as a daughter she came with me here. Your father could not leave his parish, and was it right that I should travel all these miles alone to face such an illness as yours? The difficulty, however, will soon be ended, as Mary tells me she must leave us to-morrow; she has friends here in Dublin. Your danger is past, she says, and she is no longer needed. Believe me, Frank, it is not your return to health which is driving her away, but your coldness and indifference, and (forgive me, dear) your ingratitude.”
“What is it you want me to do, mother?” asks poor Frank, piteously. “Not marry her! I have no love to offer any woman now. My heart is crushed and broken, and a dozen Mary Burtons couldn’t mend it.”