"She likes it," said Nell, with a smile. "She is happier and more interested than I have ever seen her."
Dick struck an attitude and his forehead.
"Can it be—oh, can it be that the romance will end another way? Are we going to lose our dear mamma? Grateful stranger—love at first sight——"
"Dick, you are the worst kind of imbecile! He is years younger than mamma—young enough to be her son. Now, Dick, dry up, and don't make a noise. He is really ill. I know it by the way the old doctor smiles. He always smiles and grins when the case is serious. You'll be quiet, Dick, dear?"
"This tender solicitude for the sufferer touches me deeply," he whimpered, mopping his eyes. "Oh, yes, I'll be quiet, Nell. Much as I love excitement, I'm not anxious for a funeral, and a bereaved and heartbroken sister. Shall I take my boots off before entering the abode of sickness, or shall I walk in on my head?"
The day passed. Dick, driven almost mad by the enforced quietude, and the incessant "Hushes!" of Mrs. Lorton, betook himself to his tool shed to mend his fishing rod—and cut his fingers—and then to bed. Molly went to the sick room in the capacity of nurse, and Mrs. Lorton, after desiring everybody that she should be called if "a change took place," retired to the rest earned by pleasurable excitement; and Nell stole past the spare-room door to her nest under the roof.
As she undressed slowly, she paused now and again to listen. All was quiet; the injured man was still sleeping. She went to the open window and looked out seaward. Something was stirring within her, something that was like the faint motion of the air before a storm. Is it possible that we have some premonition of the first change in our lives; the change which is to alter the course of every feeling, every action? She knew too little of life or the world to ask herself the question; but she was conscious of a sensation of unrest, of disquietude. She could not free herself from the haunting presence of the handsome face, of the dark and weary, wistful eyes. The few sentences he had spoken kept repeating themselves in her ear, striking on her brain with soft persistence. The very name filled her thoughts. "Drake Vernon, Drake Vernon!"
At last, with an impatient movement, with a blush of shame for the way in which her mind was dwelling on him, she left the window and fell on her knees at the narrow bed to say her prayers.
But his personality intruded even on her devotions, and, half unconsciously, she added to her simple formula a supplication for his recovery.
Then she got into bed and fell asleep. But in a very little while she started awake, seeing the horse shy and fall, feeling the man's head upon her lap. She sat up and listened. His room was beneath hers—the cottage was built in the usual thin and unsubstantial fashion—and every sound from the room below rose to hers. She heard him moan; once, twice; then his voice, thick and husky, called for water.