"Has the nurse been here to-day?" he asked, in the same gentle voice.
The woman nodded, rolling her bandaged head upon the pillow. "Ain't you going to sit down, now you've come?" she said.
He drew a chair to the bedside and sat down, laying his hand on the burning one that played nervously upon the quilt.
"Are you in pain?"
"Always—night and day."
He looked at her for a moment in silence; then he spoke soothingly. "You sent for me," he said. "I came as soon as the services were over."
She answered timidly, with a faint deprecation:
"I thought I was going. It came all faint-like, and then it went away."
A compassion more mental than emotional awoke in his glance.
"It was weakness," he answered. "You know this is the tenth time in the last fortnight that you have felt it. When it comes, do you take the medicine?"