"Much mind he's got to rest with!" said Mrs. Redd, contemptuously.
With her two assistants, it was not necessary that Anne should remain in the room at night, and she did not, at least in personal presence; but every half-hour she was at the top of the stairway, silently watching to see if Diana fulfilled her duties. On the third day the new medicines and the vigilance conquered. On the fifth day the sick man fell into his first natural slumber. The house was very still. Bees droned serenely. There was no breeze. Anne was sitting on the door-steps. "Ought I to go now before he wakens?" she was thinking. "But I can not until the danger is surely over. He may not recognize me even now." She said to herself that she would stay a short time longer, but without entering the room where he was; Diana could come to her for orders, and the others must not allude to her presence. Then, as soon as she was satisfied that his recovery was certain, she could slip away unseen. She went round to the back of the house to warn the others; it was all to go on as though she was not there.
Heathcote wakened at last, weak but conscious. He had accepted without speech the presence of Diana and July, and had soon fallen asleep again, "like a chile." He ate some breakfast the next morning, and the day passed without fever. Mrs. Redd pronounced him convalescent, and declared decisively that all he needed was to "eat hearty." The best medicine now would be "a plenty of vittals." In accordance with this opinion she prepared a meal of might, carried it in with her own hands, and in two minutes, forgetting all about the instructions she had received, betrayed Anne's secret. Diana, who was present, looked at her reproachfully: the black skin covered more faithfulness than the white.
"Well, I do declare to Jerusalem I forgot!" said the hostess, laughing. "However, now you know it, Miss Douglas might as well come in, and make you eat if she can. For eat you must, captain. Why, man alive, if you could see yourself! You're just skin and rattling bones."
And thus it all happened. Anne, afraid to lay so much as a finger's weight of excitement of any kind upon him in his weak state, hearing his voice faintly calling her name, and understanding at once that her presence had been disclosed, came quietly in with a calm face, as though her being there was quite commonplace and natural, and taking the plate from Diana, sat down by the bedside and began to feed him with the bits of chicken, which was all of the meal of might that he would touch. She paid no attention to the expression which grew gradually in his feeble eyes as they rested upon her and followed her motions, at first vaguely, then with more and more of insistence and recollection.
"Anne?" he murmured, after a while, as if questioning with himself. "It is Anne?"
She lifted her hand authoritatively. "Yes," she said; "but you must not talk. Eat."
He obeyed; but he still gazed at her, and then slowly he smiled. "You will not run away again?" he whispered.
"Not immediately."
"Promise that you will not go to-night or to-morrow."