Sebastian waited to hear no more; he ran up the dark stair and unceremoniously opened the door of Anne’s room.
Such a blaze of light smote across his eyes as he came in that he was half-blinded, for the skies were scarlet that night from a great sunset, and all the room was lit up with the red glow. He stood for a moment in the doorway shading his eyes from the dazzle, then stepped across the crazy old floor, that creaked and gave under his heavy tread.
‘Annie, Annie!’ he cried, kneeling down beside her.
For Anne, she thought she dreamed again; the weary tossings of the desolate day were done—she tasted a supreme felicity. What if with the breaking day the vision fled, and she woke again to want and loneliness? enough that now it tarried with her. She would not move, she scarcely dared to breathe for dread lest the dream should depart; but lay very still and felt the kindly strength of Sebastian’s arm support her, and his cool hard cheek pressed against hers that burned with fever. ‘Annie,’ he said again, and this time Anne opened her eyes and smiled.
‘Eh, Sebastian, Sebastian, my dear man, stay—stay one minute, for dreams be terrible short,’ she cried. Nor would all Shepley’s words reassure her of his actual presence.
‘So many days as I’ve lain here, an’ such dreams and dreams! Lor’! them was dreams! You and Dick Sundon, Dick Sundon an’ you, back and fore you came and went the two of you. Sometimes Phil ’ud be there too (Phil my boy as is)—(Lord Christ, have a care on Phil, being that he’s so young and with none but Dick Sundon a-carin’ of him!) . . . then I’d dream of Dick for hours and hours, an’ now, Sebastian, ’tis you; Lord send this dream stays!’
Shepley knelt beside her, listening to all her strange babble of ‘Dick’ and ‘Phil;’ but feeling how the fever ran hot in her blood he pushed back the fears that came to him with her words. He looked round the room, with the stamp of relentless poverty set everywhere on it, and thanked Heaven he was there now. For poor Anne lay on the bare boards of this place that was now her shelter, and for covering she had thrown over her the dress she had taken off. No trace of meat or drink was to be seen anywhere.
As he sat thus taking in the bareness of poor Anne’s sick-room, with a perfunctory little knock the door was shoved open and Mistress Nare came in. She walked across the floor on tiptoe and stood looking at Anne.
‘The fever hath gotten that hold on her blood ’twill burn her up before the week is out,’ she said sagely, winking across at Sebastian. ‘And by your leave, sir, I’d make bold to say you’d best sit farther off from her—’tis a catching sickness I dare swear.’
‘I am come here to cure her,’ said Sebastian; ‘I am a surgeon to my trade.’