"Will you show this lady to her room?" said the clergyman courteously to the maid who opened the door.
"Not yet, thank you," said Mona. "Show me to Miss Reynolds's room, please. I will go there first."
The room was brightly lighted with a pretty lamp, for Lucy could not bear to have anything gloomy about her. She was lying in bed, propped up with pillows, her eyes curiously large and bright, her cheeks thin, her face worn with recent suffering.
Mona bit her lip hard. She had not realised that a few days of fever and pain could work such a change.
Lucy tried to stretch out her arms, and then let them fall with a pitiful little laugh. "I can't hug you yet, Mona," she said, "but oh! it is good to see you," and tears of sheer physical weakness filled her eyes.
"You poor little thing! What a scolding you shall have when you are better! You are not to be trusted out of my sight for a moment."
"I know," said Lucy feebly. "I never should have got ill if you had been here; and now I shall just have one illness after another, till you come back and go on with your work."
She looked so infinitely pathetic and unlike herself that Mona could scarcely find words. Instinctively she took Lucy's wrist in one cool hand, and laid the other on the child's flushed cheek.
"Oh, I am all right now. Of course my heart bounded off when I heard the hansom stop. But here comes my doctor. I scarcely need you to send me to Paradise to-night, doctor; my friend Miss Maclean has come."
Mona held out her hand. "Your name is almost as familiar to me as my own," she said. "It is a great pleasure to meet you."