"Your blundering? If everybody would only blunder as you have, Mrs. Burke, then there would——"
"You must not say that, Mr. Durham," she interrupted.
"But indeed I must," he answered softly. "You have not only brought me back to health, but you have given me new life—something I never had before—not until I met you. I want to tell you. I want——"
"No, no," she exclaimed, as she rose to her feet. "You must not talk like that. You must not, really. I will not listen to you, I must not."
He lay back in his chair and she resumed her seat in silence.
"What news had Brennan?" she asked presently. "You see, I have not been in the town since you came here," she went on. "One likes to know what is going, especially when one is isolated. Has the new manager arrived at the bank yet?"
"I think not, but I did not ask. Brennan would probably have mentioned it though, if it were so."
"I must come in and see about engaging someone to get the place ready for stock," she said. "The old man is not a scrap of use. In fact, I wish he were back in Ireland. He has the usual Irish failing, Mr. Durham. You know what that is. I'm always afraid that he will break out if ever he gets into the town by himself."
"Drink?" Durham asked.
"Oh, something terrible. I don't think he has had any since you have been up here, but one never knows. Any time I may find him helpless. It makes me uneasy until I have someone else about the place. Sure you can never say what a man like that will do. He might set the whole place on fire over my head, and I should never know it till I was burned to death perhaps."