“Ah,” he said, with a faint smile on his pinched lips, “I said ‘my dear.’ Yes; not the way to address one’s nurse. It was to the sweet, gentle woman who has tended me with all the patient affection of a daughter.”
“Oh, Mr Elthorne!” she cried, her eyes brimming with tears, “I have only tried to do my duty as your attendant.”
“And you have done much more,” he said, as he still gazed at her thoughtfully. “You have set me thinking a great deal, my child—a great deal, and—no, you must not talk of leaving here again for a long time—a very long time.”
She shook her head.
“I have duties in London, sir, which call me away.”
“And a duty here which keeps you,” he said, smiling. “You would not be so hard-hearted as to leave such a broken old fellow as I am—helpless.”
“But you will not be so helpless soon, sir.”
“Ah, well,” he replied, “there is time enough for that. We shall see—we shall see. Yes. Come in!” he cried querulously, for there was a tap at the door. “No, do; don’t come in. See who it is, my child. If it is Isabel, she may come. If it is my sister, tell her I cannot see her to-night, and that she must stay with her visitor.”
“And it will make her more bitter against me,” thought Elisia, as she crossed the room, to find that it was Maria Bell.
“Miss Isabel wants you in the lib’ry, nurse, in a quarter of an hour,” said the woman shortly; and she turned her back and went down.