“Oh, you think that young f-fellow at the Hall is going to marry you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I tell you frankly, I wouldn’t take a wife from this house.”
“But then you wouldn’t take a wife from anywhere, Doctor Lowe. If you did, you would think more of the girl than of the place she came from, just as Laurence does.”
“You have a sharp little tongue. I pity Laurence when he comes home late.”
He asked after Haidee; but I could not let him see her, as the staircase was not yet ready; so, after giving me instructions about the treatment of Sarah, he left the house.
There was a fire already in her room, for she was by no means the ill-used creature she liked to think herself. I seated myself in a chair beside it, prepared to watch until early morning, when the cook had promised to take my place. Before long the patient began to grow restless, as the Doctor had predicted; she turned her head from side to side, tried to raise her broken arm, which had been set and bandaged tightly down, muttering and moaning incoherently. Presently she was quite quiet, and I hoped she had gone to sleep. I think I must have dozed myself for a few minutes, when I was startled into full wakefulness by a low hoarse cry of “Jim!”
She had managed to move her head so that her great black eyes, glittering now with fever, were fixed full upon me; and my heart beat fast, for I thought she must know me. But she repeated, still staring at me—
“Jim!” Then she added in a whisper, “They are after you, Jim! It’s about the check. You must be off to-night. Go to the old place. I’ll put ’em off, and I’ll let you know.”
Then more mutterings and exclamations, and before long she began again to speak coherently—