“It was more than a suspicion with me, Neil. But, tell me, do you think now that he will want me to listen to that dreadful Sir Cheltnam?”
“Let’s wait and see, dear,” said Neil quickly. “We must not meet troubles half way. This is no time to think of such a matter as that.”
“No; I felt that, dear, but I think so much about it that it would keep coming up.”
“Leave it now, and we will talk about it another time,” said Neil gently. “You can always come to me, Isabel, and I will try to be worthy of your confidence.”
“Yes, I know that, Neil,” she said quickly; and after kissing him once more she hurried out of the room, leaving her brother to his thoughts and the long watch through the night.
And as he seated himself near the bed, where he could gaze at the stern, deeply lined countenance upon the pillow, his memory went back to early days, when he and his brother felt something akin to dread whenever their father spoke. And from that starting point he went on through boyhood up to manhood, right up to the present, when, after shaping the lives of his children as far as had been possible, his father seemed determined to carry out his plans for the future.
A slight movement on the part of the patient made Elthorne rise from his seat, take the shaded lamp and go close to the bedside, but his father slept heavily, and he returned to his seat to continue unravelling the thread of his career.
A few months back his father’s plans had seemed of no consequence to him whatever. Half jokingly Mr Elthorne had thrown him and Saxa Lydon together, and the bright, talkative girl, with her love of out door life, had amused him. If he must marry, he thought it did not much matter to him who the lady might be, so long as she was not exacting and did not interfere with his studies. Saxa Lydon was not likely to want him to take her into society. She was too fond of her horses and dogs, and if it pleased his father, why, it would please him.
But then came the appointment of Nurse Elisia to Sir Denton’s ward, and by degrees a complete change had come over the spirit of his dream. At first he had hardly noticed her save that she was a tall, graceful woman, with a sweet, calm, saddened countenance which he felt would be sympathetic to the patients; and, soon after, half wonderingly he had noticed the intense devotion of this refined gentlewoman to the various cases. Nothing was too horrible, nothing too awful. The most sordid and repellent duties were unshrinkingly done, and in the darkest, most wearisome watches of the night she was always at her post, patient and wakeful, ready to tend, to humour, to relieve the poor sufferer whose good fortune it had been to have her aid.
Then he had thought it no wonder that Sir Denton was loud in her praise, and a certain intimacy of a friendly nature had sprung up between them, during which he had soon discovered that their new nurse was no ordinary woman, but who or what she was he had no idea, and it seemed was not likely to know, for she never referred to her antecedents.