Madge Mullion was very ill, and she seemed to Geoffrey to be going back, as he sat looking at her a few days after his return from town.
There was something about the poor girl he liked, for she was simple-hearted and loving to a degree, and he would often sit in the next room apparently busy writing, but watching her intensity of affection for her child.
“Come, Madge,” he said to her, “why don’t you grow strong again, and be a woman and fight the world?”
Her eyes filled with tears, and he cried out impatiently,—
“Now, look here, Madge, you are going to cry, and tell me how sorry you are for the pain you have caused me, and beg me to forgive you for what you have done; and if ever you say such a thing to me again, I shall run out of the house.”
“No,” she faltered, “I was not, Mr Trethick. I was going to say, why should I grow well and strong again?”
“For that!” he said abruptly, and he pointed to the sleeping child.
She glided from the sofa to the side of the cradle, and laid her face against the little cheek.
“And, look here,” he said, “you are fretting yourself into the grave, Madge!”
“Yes, Mr Trethick.”