“Dearest Julian!” she cried, with her arms about him, “how did you come without sending me word? Oh, where are you wounded?”
“The arm—the right,” he said rather feebly. “It is only a flesh wound, I know, but it was enough to knock me over, and it has been bleeding badly. If you wash it and bind it up a bit, however, it will be all right until the morning, when I can have it looked to.”
Slowly and painfully he raised his right arm. He had apparently slit up the sleeve of his tunic, and the pieces fell away to the right and left of his arm, showing her a wound black with coagulated blood.
“My poor boy—my poor boy!” she said. “I shall do my best with it; but it is an ugly wound. Why should I not send a man to the surgery? Dr Gwynne will come at once.”
“No, no,” he said; “I don’t want to make a fuss at this hour. You can manage without outside help. Hadn’t you better light the candles?”
She sprang to her feet, and picking up one of the long chips from the log basket, lighted it in the fire and then transferred the flame to two of the old sconces at the side of the fireplace. As the light flickered on him she saw that his tunic was torn and splashed, and that his putties were caked with mire. No wayside tramp could be in a more dilapidated condition than Julian was in. He had clearly been walking some distance; and yet she could not recollect seeing any clay for miles around of the same tint as that which was caked upon his garments.
She was about to ask him why he should not go upstairs to his own room where she could attend to him properly, but she restrained her nurse’s instinct to ask an irritated patient questions. She examined the wound and said—
“I will wash it for you and bind it up till the morning. I shall get a basin in my own room.”
“‘A ministering angel thou!’” he said, with a very wan smile. “By the way, Madge, do you remember the lace handkerchief—the Medici handkerchief?”
“I was looking at it only an hour ago,” she said.