‘Father, are you ill?’ cried Lizzie quickly, as she sprang to his assistance.
‘No, I think not; but I will take a cordial, if you will mix it for me. I must not be ill until this business is settled, and Maraquita is safe under her parents’ roof again.’
‘But your hands are very cold, and you are trembling all over. Surely you are unfit for further work, and should go to bed and rest. Father, trust her to me. Don’t overtax your strength, for her sake. You know that I am a careful and trustworthy nurse.’
‘If I die in the effort, I will watch over her myself, and without assistance!’ cried the Doctor excitedly, as he drank the draught she tendered him, and tottered back to the sleeping-chamber.
Lizzie looked after him with the deepest anxiety.
‘I am sure he is ill,’ she said to herself, and if I am not very much mistaken, he has the symptoms of the fever strongly upon him. Oh, my poor father! is it possible that when you need the attention and skill you have bestowed on others, you will sacrifice yourself for the sake of this frail girl? Yes, I feel you will, even should it result in your own death. And I would have it so, though Heaven only knows what I should do without you—sooner than see you shrink from paying off one tithe of the heavy debt you owe to Maraquita’s father. But the bearing of this heavy burden laid upon us! Did Mr Courtney but know the weight of it, he would surely acknowledge his forbearance has not been in vain.’
CHAPTER V.
