Then there was a pause, broken only by the old woman’s painful sobs.
“My poor old Milt,” said North gently, as he raised her from the ground. “Why, what were you thinking—that I would do you any harm?”
“I—I couldn’t help it, sir; but—but I don’t think so now. Oh, master—dear master, I thought you had killed some one. What does it mean?—what does it mean?”
He did not answer for a few moments, and when he spoke again there was an indescribable, mournful sadness in his voice. “What are you thinking?” he said. She answered with a sob. “I’ll tell you,” he said; “you think that I am mad.”
“No, no, no! master—my great, clever, noble master,” cried the old woman passionately. “Only ill—only very ill; and you can cure yourself. Yes, yes; pray say that you can!”
“No,” he said bitterly. “No. It has come to the worst. There, go: I am worn out, and want to rest.”
“But you will let me help you, dear,” she said, speaking with the tenderness of a mother towards the boy she worshipped with a lavish love. “Let me do something—let me help you, dear. It is overwork. Your poor brain is troubled. Let me open the window, and let in light and air, and then you shall go to bed; and I’ll bathe your poor head, and you shall tell me what to mix. You know how I can nurse and tend you now you are ill.”
North took the old woman’s head between his hands as they stood there in the darkness, and kissed her on the forehead.
“Yes, the best and gentlest of nurses,” he said quietly.
“And you will let me help you, sir?”