"Is the pain gone?" asked Jack in a half whisper, remembering the white face and the little moan.
"It's better but not conquered yet, but it will get better every day. Would you like to come with me the next time I go, and take her a bunch of flowers?"
Jack's head went down. "Not if she shuts her eyes and makes a noise," he said.
"But her eyes are very big and wide open, and she'll smile at you and be so pleased to see you. I want you and Eva to go sometimes to see her. It's rather dull for her lying there all day long, although soon she will be wheeled out into the verandah."
Thus reassured Jack accepted Tom's suggestion. Yet he experienced an inward tremor as he found himself at the house-door which Tom opened and entered without knocking, but he knocked at the half-open door of the room just inside, and a girl's voice bade him enter.
"I've brought you a visitor, Jessie, a little boy who has been very anxious you should get well."
Jack laid his flowers on the bed. There was no room for fear or distress in looking at the girl who lay there with her pretty oval face framed in two big braids of dark hair, and with great, big grey eyes that smiled a welcome.
"Are they for me?" she said, nodding at the flowers. "I'd like 'em near, so as I could smell them," so Jack shifted his nosegay nearer the pillow.
"You must know his name, for he's coming again, and going to bring a little chum of his with him, my niece, Eva Kenyon. This is Jack Stephens, and his titles are numerous. He's Jack the Englishman, and Jack the Bell-ringer—he rings the bell in church, don't you, Jack?"
"Not last Sunday, because we didn't want to make a noise as you were ill," said Jack gravely.