“Quite right,” replied Redfield; “but all the same we want you where we can get at you, and where medical aid of the right sort is accessible. I’m going to fetch my bed over here and put you into it. You need rest.”
Lee still lingered after Redfield left them. “Please do as Mr. Redfield tells you,” she pleaded, “for I shall be very anxious till you get safely down the mountains. If that poor old man has any relatives they ought to be told how kind you have been. You could not have been kinder to one of your own people.”
These words from her had a poignancy of meaning which made his reply difficult. His tone was designedly light as he retorted: “I would be a fraud if I stood here listening to your praise without saying—without confessing—how deadly weary I got of the whole business. It was simply that there was nothing else to do. I had to go on.”
Her mind still dwelt on the tragic event. “I wish he could have had some kind of a service. It seems sort of barbarous to bury him without any one to say a prayer over him. But I suppose that was impossible. Surely some one ought to mark his grave, for some of his people may come and want to know where he lies.”
He led her thoughts to pleasanter paths. “I am glad you are going with the Supervisor. You are going, are you not?”
“Yes, for a few days, till I’m sure you’re safe.”
“I shall be tempted to pretend being sick just to keep you near me,” he was saying, when Redfield returned, bringing his sleeping-couch. Unrolling this under a tree beside the creek, the Supervisor said: “Now, get into that.”
Cavanagh resigned Lee with a smile. “Good-night,” he said. “Oh, but it’s good to remember that I shall see you to-morrow!”
With a happy glance and a low “Good-bye” she turned away.
Laying aside his blanket and his shoes, Cavanagh crept into the snug little camp-bed. “Ah,” he breathed, with a delicious sense of relief, “I feel as if I could sleep a week!” And in an instant his eyes closed in slumber so profound that it was barren even of dreams.