The patient opened his eyes with astonishment.
"Miss Rolleston's beau?"
"Ay, her intended. What, didn't you know, she is engaged to be married?"
"She engaged to be married?" gasped Seaton.
Wilson watched him with a remorseless eye.
"Why, James," said she, after awhile, "did you think the likes of her would go through the world without a mate?"
Seaton made no reply but a moan, and lay back like one dead, utterly crushed by this cruel blow.
A buxom middle-aged nurse now came up and said, with a touch of severity, "Come, my good girl, no doubt you mean well, but you are doing ill. You had better leave him to us for the present."
On this hint Wilson bounced out and left the patient to his misery.
At her next visit she laid a nosegay on his bed and gossiped away, talking of everything in the world except Miss Rolleston.