‘My father is at home, dear. He will see you at once if you wish it. But why didn’t you send for him, Maraquita, if you felt ill? Why did you take the trouble to come down here to see him?’
But all the answer Maraquita made was to utter another heartrending moan as she swayed backwards and forwards with pain.
‘Oh, my dearest girl, you are really ill! You must come to the bungalow at once, and let father prescribe for you. Lean on me, Maraquita, and let me support you. Only a few steps farther, and we shall be there.’
The girl she spoke to appeared to have no alternative but to accede to her request. She leaned heavily on Liz’s arm, and with many a moan dragged her feet across the threshold of the Doctor’s house, where she sank exhausted into a chair.
She was a beautiful creature, who had just attained her eighteenth year. Her fair-haired English father had imparted to her a skin of dazzling whiteness, with a complexion like the heart of a maiden-blush rose, and her Spanish mother had given her eyes dark as the sloe and soft as velvet, with languishing lids and curled lashes, and hair of rippling raven. Maraquita’s form was slight and supple; her hands and feet small and childlike. She was in all points a great contrast to the Doctor’s daughter, who regarded her as the loveliest girl she had ever seen. As little children they had been the most intimate companions and playmates, Lizzie acting as an elder sister and protector to the little Maraquita, who toddled all over the plantation under her care. When older, too, they had studied together, or rather Liz had tried to impart the knowledge she derived from her father to Quita; but the latter had never advanced beyond the rudiments of learning. Her indolent, half-educated mother, who lounged about in a dressing-gown all day, and had no thoughts beyond her Sunday attire and her evening drive, considered schooling quite unnecessary for her beautiful little daughter, and much preferred to see her running about the White House in a lace frock and blue ribbons, with her rosy, dimpled feet bare, to letting her be cooped up in the bungalow studying grammar and geography.
So Maraquita had grown up to womanhood about as ignorant as it is possible for a young lady to be—about also as vain and foolish as it is possible for a woman to be. Yet Liz loved her—spite of it all—for the sake of those early memories. She had never relinquished her intimacy with Quita, and when they met, they were as familiar as of old, but they did not meet so often as before. The last two years, during which Miss Courtney had been introduced to the society of San Diego, had much separated them. The pleasant evenings which they had been used to spend together, wandering through the coffee plantation, were gone for ever. Quita was always engaged now, either to a dinner, or a ball, or to go to the theatre with her friends, and Liz had ceased to expect to see her. And since the fever had broken out amongst the coolies, they had never met, and she was content, for Quita’s sake, that it should be so. And now to find her wandering about the plantation at night and evidently so ill, filled Liz’s breast with alarm. There was but one solution of the riddle. Quita had contracted the fever in its worst form, and had come to them in her delirium. Liz had no time to do more than think the thought before she deposited Quita in a chair and rushed to wake her father, and summon him to her relief.
‘Father,’ she exclaimed hurriedly, as she roused Dr Fellows from his sleep, ‘I am so sorry to disturb you, but it is absolutely necessary. Quita is ill—very ill, and you must come to her at once. I met her wandering about the grounds, evidently in great pain, and she says she wants to see you. I am afraid she is delirious. Oh, father, do come to her at once!’
‘Maraquita here?’ said the Doctor, as he rose from his bed and prepared to quit the room. ‘And without her parents? Impossible.’
‘Oh, father, I am sure she is not in her right senses, though she is too ill to speak much. What will Mr and Mrs Courtney say?’
‘We must send word to them at once,’ exclaimed the Doctor, as he preceded his daughter to the sitting-room. But as soon as he had felt Maraquita’s pulse, and listened to her moans, the expression of his face changed from concern to the deepest dismay. ‘This is much worse than I anticipated,’ he whispered to his daughter. ‘We must carry her into my room at once.’