“Mr Elthorne,” she said, “will you be good enough to set me free? Another nurse could do my duties, and I wish now to return to the hospital.”
“Return? You know it is impossible,” he said. “The consequences to my father would be most serious. You know that as well as I.”
She turned to the patient, and looked at him sadly for a few moments.
“You need not be afraid,” he said coldly. “I shall not address you again. It was a mad dream, and is at an end. I have been awakened at last.”
He left the room, feeling as if he could hardly contain his anger as he asked himself whether other men could be as weak, and if this was all the strength of mind and dignity he had achieved by his years of patient study.
“I spoke to her like some spiteful schoolgirl,” he muttered, as he reached the library, and then threw himself into a chair. “What must she have thought? How could I lower myself so in her eyes?”
He had hardly left his father’s room when there was a quick, soft tap at the door, and as the nurse rose to open it, Isabel appeared.
Her eyes were red as if she had been weeping lately, and she made a few hurried steps toward the couch, and then turned angrily upon the nurse, as a hand was laid upon her arm.
“How dare you?” she cried. “I must and I will speak to papa.”
“I dare,” said Nurse Elisia, smiling, “because he must not be awakened suddenly.”