Yes! I was in love with Alie, and, what is more, I am in love with her now, as I shall be in love with her on my dying day, and afterwards if that be possible. And this I can say truthfully, that throughout my love for her, my heart has known no unworthy thought. I have loved her for her beautiful, noble, impulsive, generous self, and, if that be an offence, I can only say that I am proud to acknowledge it.
But though I was over head and ears in love with her, seeing no sun in heaven when she was not with me, no stars at night when I was not by her side, never once did I allow her to suspect my passion. I did my work as I had contracted to do it—that is, to the best of my ability. But hard as I worked, she worked harder. Day in, day out, she was never idle; she took her share of nursing, superintended the erection of huts and houses for those who had been deprived of them, and cheered and encouraged everyone with whom she came in contact. Beautiful White Devil, the Chinese called her. Beautiful White Angel would surely have been a better and more appropriate name.
CHAPTER VI.
Sixty-four days exactly after my taking charge of the health of the settlement, the last patient was discharged from the hospital, cured. Out of one hundred and ninety-five cases treated, one hundred and thirty-three had recovered; the rest lay in the little graveyard on the hillside to the eastward of the town. It had been a weary, harassing time from beginning to end, and the strain and responsibility had had a more severe effect upon me than I should have anticipated. Alie alone, of all the workers, seemed untouched. Her indomitable will would not permit her body to know such a thing as fatigue, and for this reason the last day of our work found her powers as keen and her energy as unabated as they had been on the first.
On the afternoon of the day following the discharge of my last patient, she came into the surgery, and, seating herself in my armchair, looked about her with that interest my medical affairs always seemed to inspire in her.
"Dr. De Normanville," she began, clasping her little white hands together on the arm of the chair; "I have been watching you lately, and I have come to the conclusion that you are thoroughly tired out. There is but one cure for that—rest and complete change of air and scene."
"And pray what makes you suppose I am worn out?" I asked, wiping a pair of forceps that I had been using on a native boy five minutes before, and putting them back into their case.
"The colour of your face for one thing," she answered, "and the way you move about for another. Your appetite, I have also noticed, has been gradually falling off of late. No, it won't do! My friend, you have been so good to us that we should be worse than ungrateful if we allowed you to get ill. So, without consulting you, I have arranged a little holiday for you!"
"That is very kind of you," I said; "and pray what is it to be?"