"If you please, sir, I think you had better not. I have something to tell you."
She then communicated to him by degrees her suspicion that James Seaton was in love with his daughter. He treated this with due ridicule at first; but she gave him one reason after another till she staggered him, and he went downstairs in a most mixed and puzzled frame of mind, inclined to laugh, inclined to be angry, inclined to be sorry.
The officer had just arrived, and was looking over some photographs to see if James Seaton was "one of his birds." Such, alas! was his expression.
At sight of this, Rolleston colored up; but extricated himself from the double difficulty with some skill. "Hexham," said he, "this poor fellow has behaved like a man, and got himself wounded in my service. You are to take him to the infirmary; but, mind, they must treat him like my own son, and nothing he asks for be denied him."
Seaton walked with feeble steps, and leaning on two men, to the infirmary; and General Rolleston ordered a cup of coffee, lighted a cigar and sat cogitating over this strange business and asking himself how he could get rid of this young madman and yet befriend him. As for Sarah Wilson, she went to bed discontented and wondering at her own bad judgment. She saw too late that if she had held her tongue Seaton would have been her patient and her prisoner; and as for Miss Rolleston, when it came to the point, why, she would never have nursed him except by proxy, and the proxy would have been Sarah Wilson.
However, the blunder blind passion had led her into was partially repaired by Miss Rolleston herself. When she heard, next day, where Seaton was gone, she lifted up her hands in amazement. "What could papa be thinking of to send our benefactor to a hospital?" And, after meditating awhile, she directed Wilson to cut a nosegay and carry it to Seaton. "He is a gardener;" said she innocently. "Of course he will miss his flowers sadly in that miserable place."
And she gave the same order every day, with a constancy that, you must know, formed part of this young lady's character. Soup, wine and jellies were sent from the kitchen every other day with equal pertinacity.
Wilson concealed the true donor of all those things and took the credit to herself. By this means she obtained the patient's gratitude, and he showed it so frankly she hoped to steal his love as well.
But no! his fancy and his heart remained true to the cold beauty he had served so well, and she had forgotten him, apparently.
This irritated Wilson at last, and she set to work to cure him with wholesome but bitter medicine. She sat down beside him one day, and said cheerfully, "We are all 'on the keyfeet' just now. Miss Rolleston's beau is come on a visit."