“I will certainly do so,” he said. “But you must remember that the work is tiring and demands incessant watchfulness and patience, for typhoid, above all other diseases depends on nursing. Please remember what I told you about boiling and filtering water. If you cannot trust your servants, see it done yourselves. There is no precaution half so necessary.”
“And the baby?” asked Jeannie. “Is it quite safe that it should remain here?”
Dr. Maitland had a merry eye.
“Perfectly,” he said. “But you will probably not think so. If you are in any way likely to worry about it, send it away at once. I can not have my nurses thinking about any thing but their patients. That is all, I think. If you will be here again by half past two I will have arranged about your duties.”
He shook hands with them, and went hurriedly back to his work. Miss Fortescue and Jeannie came out again into the hot, drowsy atmosphere, and walked a little way in silence.
“Think it over, Jeannie,” said the other at length. “I quite understand that you are not frightened for yourself, and I never expected you would be. But you have to consider your duty toward your brother and other people who are fond of you. Me, for instance,” she added, with an unusual burst of emotion.
“There is no choice,” said Jeannie. “I must help if I can, and I am sure you see that. But what about the baby? Shall we send it away? No doubt it is stupid of me, but I think I should be happier if it was not here.”
“It shall go this afternoon,” said Miss Fortescue. “We will telegraph to Jack Collingwood.”
“Don’t alarm him,” said Jeannie, and stopped abruptly.
Miss Fortescue devoted several seconds to the consideration of this remark, and then smiled on the side of her mouth away from Jeannie.