Nathan came to the kitchen while they were talking.
“I think I’ll take that youngster home with me if you’re goin’ t’ be alone t’ day,” he announced.
Doctor Morgan looked relieved.
“That’s about the kindest thing you could do for this girl,” he said. “Noland isn’t as well as I’d like to have him, and she’s up every hour in the night. It takes a hired girl to run off at a time like this.”
Elizabeth defended Hepsie at once. “Hepsie’s pure gold. She waited a long time for Hugh to get well. Please, Doctor, don’t make any such remark as that outside of this house or some one ’ll tell her I said it. Really, she’s the best help a woman ever had. She’ll come back the first of next week. She said she’d come back any day I’d send for her. She’d do anything for me.”
“I guess you’re right, little woman,” Doctor Morgan laughed. “I wish all the same that you had some one with you so that you could stay right with that boy.”
All through the forenoon Elizabeth kept out of the sickroom except when the medicine was due, and then got away as fast as she could, though it was not easy to do so, for Doctor Morgan had urged her to entertain the invalid and keep him cheered up, letting her see that he was more than usually worried. She meant to live up to her resolutions, but in the afternoon Hugh was so quiet that it seemed ominous and began to worry her.
“Oh, Hugh! how can I do right if you take it this way?” she cried in despair, and would have stroked his hair if he had not shrunk from her hand.
“Don’t, Elizabeth. You have asked for help. I have to give it in my own way. I have done harm enough to your life. Make it as easy for me as you can, for I’m only a man and—well, I’ve promised to help you—at any cost. You’ve nothing to worry about. I’m no worse than I’ve been,” he ended in a whisper, and closed his eyes, as was his way when he did not want to talk.
The girl tiptoed out, and left him to his thoughts. Her own were anything but satisfactory. He was more wan and tragic than ever before, and Doctor Morgan had especially cautioned her. She worked in the kitchen most of the evening, keeping out of his presence, and so the long, hard, unsatisfactory day passed, was recorded in the annals of time, and forever gone from the opportunity to alter or change its record.