"Who knows?" said Jim. "Maybe just the folly of an ignorant man travelling alone. Maybe there's something on him to give us a clue."
Jim knelt again. His searching fingers came in contact with a little cloth packet sewed to the inside of the man's shirt. Cutting the stitches with the point of his knife, he unwrapped it, and revealed inside a final wrapping of soft cotton, a delicate platinum chain with a great gleaming emerald hanging from it. Father and daughter looked at each other in strong amazement.
"There's some strange tale behind this," said Jim. "Put it in a safe place."
The stranger's eyelids flickered, and a slight sound issued from his lips.
"We must lay him on your bed," said Jim. "This is your job from now. Is there any condensed milk left?"
"I have saved a can," said Kitty.
"Dilute it and warm it, and feed him bread soaked in it when he is able to swallow. Keep hot cloths around his shoulder. Like he will have fever. Give him gelseminum and aconite. You know the doses."
"I know," said Kitty.
A new era began for her from that moment. In the presence of this urgent reality her vague discontents were dissipated like morning mists. Kitty had a passion for mothering, which had never been satisfied, for they all treated her like a child, and none of them had ever been sick. At first the stricken man—that strange visitant from nowhere—was no more than an object for her to wreak her passionate pity upon. Only by degrees did he come to have an individuality for her. It commenced at the moment when she made the surprising discovery that he was young. She learned that from the fresh, vibrant quality of his voice. He was delirious.
All that night, and the next day, and the night that followed he tossed and murmured in his fever. But it could be seen that he was growing better. Kitty was sleepless and happy. At first his speech was formless and incoherent. Later he fixed Kitty with his big bright eyes, and spoke with an unnatural distinctness and appearance of sanity. She listened as one listens to a romance, interested and thrilled, but unsuspicious of any real foundation to the tale. It was too much like a phantasy of the imagination, all his talk of a beautiful valley hidden within the mountains, that you entered through a cave; and of a brave and lovely woman who ruled the place, that he called Nahnya. The name suggested nothing to Kitty.