“I don’t care what the relative is—cousin, aunt, grandmother—if not too old.”
“I reject, Sir, I have no female relative here to whom I can refer you. I shall send for my housekeeper, however, who is a most intelligent person;” and he rang the bell hurriedly.
“And this ward—strange thing a ward in the house of an unmarried man—what’s her name?”
“Miss O’Hara.”
“O’Hara! O’Hara! One of the Antrim family?”
“No, Sir; no connexion even.”
“Oh, this is the housekeeper! Show me your patient, and tell me about the case as we go along;” and abruptly returning Sir Within’s salutation, he left the room, and proceeded up-stairs. “Yes, yes,” he muttered, as the housekeeper recounted the symptoms. “Yes; I know all that: but I want to hear how it began. Was there any shock—any accident? None? Mere fatigue—a long ride—over-exertion—a very hot day! Yes, yes, quite common—answers at first collectively, and then goes off raving—that’s enough!”
The rough ungracious man, abrupt of speech, and actually rude in manner, became gentle as a woman as he stole up to the bedside and laid his hand on the hot and burning forehead. She raised her hand, tremulous with fever, and placed it upon his, and said: “Yes; the pain is there!”
“Let us see if we cannot cure it,” said he softly, as he sat down beside the bed.
She turned her large lustrous eyes upon him—brightened as they were in the glow of fever—and stared at him steadfastly and long. He was counting her pulse, and she watched his lips as they faintly stirred, as though she could read her fate in their motion.