“Oh! I’m all right, barring a little stiffness,” he replied; “and that will go off in a day or two. Everybody has been awfully good to me; and as for Mother Melinda—I hope she doesn’t mind being called Mother Melinda?”
“She hasn’t got any other name that I ever heard of,” said Esmeralda.
“Well, she’s been like a mother to me, at any rate. I couldn’t have been better nursed if I’d been at home at the Manor; and I must have given her a fearful amount of trouble. I was off my head for some time. And—and, Miss Howard, speaking of that, I—I wanted to ask you something.”
“What is it?” said Esmeralda.
He looked up at her slyly, as she sat in an exquisitely graceful attitude, her brown hands folded loosely in her lap, her head slightly thrown back as she looked up at the moonlit sky.
“Mother Melinda told me that the night I was raving like a lunatic you came into the tent, and stayed for a little while. I—I hope I didn’t say anything to offend you!”
“What makes you think that?” she said.
“Because—because—I’ve had an idea that you—you tried to avoid me. I thought I might have said something about—about yourself that made you angry. You know, people talk most awful rot when they’re off their heads, as I was.”
“It wasn’t awful rot—all of it,” said Esmeralda, looking down at the pattern she was tracing in the sand with her foot. “You didn’t offend me.”
“I’m glad of that,” he said, drawing a long breath. “You can’t tell what a load you’ve taken off my mind. I’ve been wishing that they’d gagged me when I began to ramp.”