So Milly went upstairs and sat down quietly by the bedside of the sick woman, who was now sufficiently convalescent, in spite of some serious heart weakness, to take an interest in her neighbours, and was glad to see the pretty, bright girl she had often seen and admired at a distance but had never spoken to before.
"I promised your son to stop till nurse comes," Milly said pleasantly, "so I hope you will let me do so."
The sick woman smiled her willingness, and Geo, with renewed efforts at expressing his thanks, departed.
In the meantime there was trouble at the well. The work of rescue had been going on all night, and the men were giving out. Martin, toil-stained and weary, was still there, but the work was practically for the time at a standstill. The men were in absolute need of rest. When Geo reached the scene the director from Ipswich had given the order for a break-off in ten minutes for five hours rest. He was surveying, with some anxiety, the relief men who had arrived in answer to an urgent telegram he had sent a few hours ago. They were weedy-looking, dissipated fellows, and to judge by the director's face were evidently not the material he required.
"We must do the best we can with what we can get," he was saying to the doctor, who stood at a little distance holding his impatient horse by the bridle. "These men must be kept from the drink, and then they may do. At any rate, we must take them on this morning; but what I want is a strong, active, light-built young fellow, who won't lose his head in an emergency, and will do as he is told without hesitation."
Geo stepped forward. He had been near enough to hear these last words.
"Will I do, sir?"
Both men faced round at once, and Geo often told Milly afterwards that one of the hardest moments of his life was that when he caught the expression of the doctor's face. It expressed so much contempt, surprise, and distrust that he was cut to the quick, and once more within a few minutes the hot blood surged into his face. But the director's words softened the sting,—-
"Do? Why, you're just the man. Who are you, and what do you know about the work?"
"My name's Lummis," said Geo, looking him straight in the face, but avoiding the doctor's eye, "and I don't know nothin' about the work; but I heard what you said just now, and I'll do what you tell me to."