“Enough!” she said curtly. “This is my affair. I take it upon myself. Give your instructions; they will be carried out to the letter.”
“You realize that this is a very serious illness?”
“It is the typhoid fever,” said she. “I know very well.”
“Yes,” said the other. “I see you do know something. Well—”
They walked quietly away, and Hardy fell asleep.
In the night he awoke, or grew conscious again, and he saw sitting bolt upright beside his bed the gaunt young servant, in a red calico dressing jacket and a tremendous braid of dark hair. Her flat face looked so immobile, so inhuman, that he suddenly became terrified.
“Madame!” he called. “Quick! Come here! A dead woman! Quick!”
Mme. Sensobiareff hurried into the room almost at once. She soothed him, gave him something to drink, and brought an ice cap for his head. He grew calmer and presently quite lucid.
“Don’t keep me here,” he said, in a weak whisper. “Send me to the hospital. This is too much for you!”
“Hush! Hush! Be quiet! You are not to talk!”