Then waving his hand, Richard dashed from the room; while Pratt quietly sat down, half-dressed, to think it out, which meant to light his pipe.
Meanwhile his friend had rushed down, taken Sam Jenkles’s cab, which was waiting, and, as he was being driven through the streets, went over the incidents of his return—how they had called on a suburban surgeon, who had administered a styptic, and ordered them to go back very gently—how Mrs Lane had met him with a look of reproachful agony in her eyes, as he lifted out the half insensible girl, and bore her upstairs; and then, as he turned to go, after laying poor Netta on the bed, she had held out her hands to him, taking his in hers, and kissing them—so unmanning him that he had sunk upon his knees by her side, and hid his face.
He could hardly recall the rest—only that he had had to go to four doctors before he could find one ready to come to the shabby street; and when at last he had been brought to the poor girl’s bedside, he had recommended the hospital.
It was this that had sent the young man to Frank Pratt’s for money, the value of which he now thoroughly realised for the first time in his life.
The old white-haired physician came with him at once—Ratty, the horse, never once causing trouble; and Netta gave the messenger a grateful smile, as she saw the mission upon which he had been. Then, with his mind in a whirl, Richard waited to see the physician, taking him over into his own rooms, that his questions might be unheard.
“But she will recover?” said Richard, eagerly.
The old physician shook his head.
“It is but a matter of time,” he said, gravely. “I can do nothing. Quiet, change, nutritious food, are the best doctors for a case like hers. A southern climate might benefit her a little; but it would be cruelty to send her away from home, and might do more harm than good. The poor girl is in a deep decline.”
Richard was alone. What an end to the pleasant day he had projected!—one which should do his poor little neighbour good, and wherein at the same time he could quietly tell her of his position, and so stop at once any nascent idea she might have that he was seeking to win her love. How could he know, he asked himself, that matters had gone so far—that the poor child really cared for him—for him, who had not a disloyal thought to Valentina Rea; who, like the poor sufferer, lay that night wakeful, and with a weary, gnawing pain at her heart—in the one case mingled of hopeless misery, in the other tinged with bitterness, and a feeling new to her—anger against the author of her pain.
Thus the days glided by, with Netta lying dangerously ill, too weak to be moved. Richard was over a dozen times a day, asking after her health, and he had insisted upon Mrs Lane taking money for the necessities of the case. Then came a day when a fly stopped at the door; and Richard from his window, expecting to see a fresh doctor, saw a quiet-looking man step out, enter, stay a quarter of an hour, and then return; and when, an hour later, he went over himself, it was to find Mrs Lane deeply agitated, and with traces of tears upon her face; but she made no confidant of him.