All her anger and jealousy melted away now, before her great pity and her great love. She asked herself reproachfully how she could have harboured one hard thought about her darling. The poor child could not help loving the man who had befriended her, and now he was dead. It was all the more incumbent on herself to cherish and console the poor girl in her affliction.
At last she made a sign to the doctor that she was ready to go, and they left the room with silent tread.
She did not speak till they were once more in the waiting-room, then she asked, simply:
"How often may I see her?"
"Every day," he replied.
"Then I will come every day, and oh, Dr. Duncan!"—she seized his hand passionately—"I can see you are a good man. She is all the world to me. Do your best to make her well again, spare no pains, I implore you! But of course you will do all that; pardon my folly, but I love her so much, I forget what I am saying."
"You can rely on me to do my best I think, Mrs. King," he replied, as he pressed her hand.
So Catherine came every day to the hospital, sitting by and ministering to the sick girl when she happened to be awake, or if that was not the case, contenting herself with one long, yearning look at her sleeping form.
The fever left Mary in a very weak and precarious condition.