“I’m not one bit spooky, Carin, and you know it,” said Azalea rather indignantly, “but now and then I do have feelings—” she did not try to finish her sentence, but stared before her.
“That’s what I meant,” retorted Carin. “You have feelings! And you look as if you did.”
“We are all mysteriously moved to do certain things,” said the gentle Miss Zillah, who did not like her girls even to make a pretense of teasing each other. “I myself would like to have Mrs. Rowantree here. She knew Keefe before we did, and she is of the same nationality, and so possibly might have some peculiar sympathy with him. I also think we should send for a physician.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any use in sending for physicians to come up here,” Carin put in. “Just think how hard I tried to get one for Mr. Panther. Let’s have Mrs. Rowantree over by all means.”
So Miles McEvoy, a much busier man these days than he had been for years before, undertook to go for Mrs. Rowantree, though he was only just back from carrying Haystack Thompson and Mr. and Mrs. Panther to the station.
Carin decided to walk down the road a way to meet the wagon bringing Mary Cecily Rowantree; and Miss Zillah, seeing the prospect of another guest, went into the kitchen to stir up a cake and compound a custard. But Azalea did not move. She sat near the door and from time to time looked in at the delicate face of the sleeping youth. It appeared almost transparent as he lay there, his eyes closed and yet not quite closed, his lips trembling a little from the fluttering of his over-taxed heart.
“Oh, I don’t want anything to happen to him,” her heart cried within her. “How sunny and brave he is—and yet how sad, in that strange quiet way. We know him, and yet we don’t know him. If he should die, we wouldn’t be able to send word to any of his friends, for we haven’t an idea who they are. But of course he mustn’t die. There’s no reason why he should when he’s so young and all. And yet—”
The boy opened his eyes drowsily and looked about him. At first he failed to remember where he was, and half-raised himself on his elbow. Then he sank back, white and trembling. Azalea poured a glass of water from the jar they kept on the window sill, and hastening to him, lifted his head and gave him the cool drink.
Keefe smiled gratefully.
“You’re good,” he said simply. Then, after a pause: “Sit down, please.”