“But that little Nola isn’t competent to take care of him—she’ll kill him if she’s left there with him alone!”
“With kindness, then,” said Mrs. Mathews, not smiling now, but shaking her head in deprecation. “A surgeon is here, sent back by Major King, he told me, and he has taken charge of Mr. Macdonald, along with Miss Chadron and her mother. I have been dismissed, and you have been barred from the room where he lies. There’s a soldier guarding the door to keep you away from his side.”
“That’s Nola’s work,” Frances nodded, her indignation hot in her cheek, “she thinks she can batter her way into his heart if she can make him believe that I am neglecting him, that I have gone away.”
“Rest easy, my dear, sweet child,” counseled Mrs. Mathews, her hand on Frances’ shoulder. “Mr. Macdonald will get well, and there is only one door to his heart, and somebody that I know is standing in that.”
“But he—he doesn’t understand; he’ll think I’ve deserted him!” Frances spoke with trembling lips, tears darkling in her eyes.
“He knows how things stand; I had time to tell him that before they ousted me. I’d have taken time to tell him, even if I’d had to—pinch somebody’s ear.”
The soft-voiced little creature laughed when she said that. Frances felt her breath go deeper into her lungs with the relief of this assurance, and the threatening tears came falling over her fresh young cheeks. But they were tears of thankfulness, not of suspense or pain.
Frances did not trouble the soldier at the door to exercise his unwelcome and distasteful authority over her. But she saw that he was there, indeed, as she went out to give Mrs. Mathews farewell at the door.
Nola came pattering to her as she turned back in the house again to find Maggie, for her young appetite was clamoring. Nola’s eyes were round, her face set in an expression of shocked protest.