“Oh, no,” she said soothingly; “and, besides, what am I to you? Only the hired nurse.”
“Yes,” he said, gazing up at her piteously, “only the hired nurse; and yet you have tended me as if you were my child. But you will stay? You are not trifling with me?”
“No, no,” she said. “There, it is time you had your sleep.”
“Yes,” he cried bitterly, and with a suspicious look in his eyes. “You are treating me as if I were a child. Go to sleep, so that I may awake by and by and find you gone.”
She bent down and laid her hand on his, as she smiled sadly in his face.
“Have more confidence in me,” she whispered. “Have I ever deceived you in the slightest thing? I tell you I will stay till you are more fit to leave.” He uttered a low sigh and lay with his eyes half closed.
“It is so hard to have confidence when one is helpless as I am. People try to cheat me, and say to themselves, ‘It is for his good.’”
“You may trust me, Mr Elthorne,” she said gently, “trust me in everything. Sleep now—that is for your good. You shall find me here, or within call, when you awake.”
He looked at her sharply once, and then closed his eyes, dropping off at once into a heavy sleep which lasted some hours, but to awaken with a sharp start, and a wildly suspicious look around.
The chair, where it seemed to him only a minute before he had seen Nurse Elisia seated, was empty, and he uttered a low, despairing cry.