“Do sit down,” said Miss Oldcastle.—“You have been very ill, and I could do nothing for you who have been so kind to me.”
She spoke as if she had wanted to say this.
“I only wish I had a chance of doing anything for you,” I said, as I took a chair in the window. “But if I had done all I ever could hope to do, you have repaid me long ago, I think.”
“How? I do not know what you mean, Mr Walton. I have never done you the least service.”
“Tell me first, did you play the organ in church that afternoon when—after—before I was taken ill—I mean the same day you had—a friend with you in the pew in the morning ?”
I daresay my voice was as irregular as my construction. I ventured just one glance. Her face was flushed. But she answered me at once.
“I did.”
“Then I am in your debt more than you know or I can tell you.”
“Why, if that is all, I have played the organ every Sunday since uncle was taken ill,” she said, smiling.
“I know that now. And I am very glad I did not know it till I was better able to bear the disappointment. But it is only for what I heard that I mean now to acknowledge my obligation. Tell me, Miss Oldcastle,—what is the most precious gift one person can give another?”