“I thought it was high time I was getting about,” he said, and broke down coughing.
Miss Marilla paused in distress, and looked at his hollow eyes. Everything seemed to be going wrong this morning. Oh, why hadn’t Mary Amber stayed away just one day longer? But of course he had not heard her.
“Oh, you’re not fit to be up yet!” she exclaimed. “Do lie down and rest till you’ve had your breakfast.”
“I can’t be a baby having you wait on me any longer,” he said. “I’m ashamed of myself. I ought not to have stayed here at all!” His tone was savage, and he reached for his coat, and jammed it on with a determined air in spite of his weakness and the sore shivers that crept shakily up his back. “I’m perfectly all right, and you’ve been wonderful; but it’s time I was moving on.”
He pushed past her hurriedly to the bathroom, feeling that he must get out of her sight before his head began to swim. The water on his face would steady him. He dashed it on, and shivered sickly, longing to plunge back to bed, yet keeping on with his ablutions.
Miss Marilla put down her tray, and stood with tears in her eyes, waiting for him to return, trying to think what she could say to persuade him back to bed again.
Her anxious expression softened him when he came back, and he agreed to eat his breakfast before he went anywhere, and sank gratefully into the big chair in front of the Franklin heater, where she had laid out his breakfast on a little table. She had lined the chair with a big comfortable, which she drew unobtrusively about his shoulders now, slipping a cushion under his feet, and quietly coddling him into comfort again. He looked at her gratefully, and, setting down his coffee-cup, reached out and patted her hair as she rose from tucking up his feet.
“You’re just like a mother to me!” he choked, trying to keep back the emotion from his voice. “It’s been great! I can’t tell you!”
“You’ve been just like a dear son,” she beamed, touching the dark hair over his forehead shyly. “It’s like getting my own back again to have you come for this little while, and to be able to do for you. You see it wasn’t as if I really had anybody. Dick never cared for me. I used to hope he would when he grew up. I used to think of him over there in danger, and pray for him, and love him, and send him sweaters; but now I know it was really you I thought of and prayed for. Dick never cared.”
He looked at her tenderly, and pressed her hand gratefully.