The doctor had fidgeted in his chair, uttering a variety of curious, inarticulate exclamations while she was speaking.
"But, child," he repeated, earnestly, "it would be as much as your life is worth to enter the house. You would come down in a week. You might die!"
Lilly looked up into the mottled old face, and smiled sadly.
"I am not afraid," she said again, "and there is no one to care very much. Even if I should die, it would not matter."
Dr. Starkey reflected, rubbing one shrivelled finger up and down the bridge of his nose. He knew how woman's help was needed in that abode of pestilence and death. He looked at the white, supple hands clasped over the gray cloak before him, and thought of the work which they would be required to perform, then shook his head slowly, and rose.
"No," he said, "I cannot consent."
Lilly made a motion as if to speak, but he raised his hand deprecatingly.
"It would be as bad as murder," he went on. "I respect your motive, Miss O'Connell, I do, indeed; but you are too young and too—a—delicate for the undertaking. Don't think of it any more."
He took one of the hands which dropped at her side and held it in his glazed palm, looking kindly into the downcast face. He knew the girl's whole history. He had been one of the fiercest opponents of her application for a teacher's place, and from conscientious motives solely, as he believed; but he remembered it now with sharp regret. There was nothing in this fair and womanly figure to inspire antipathy, surely. For the first time, a realizing sense of her solitary life came to him, and he was pained and sorry. He wanted to be very kind to her, but felt strangely unable to express himself.
"Don't say no one would care what befell you," he began, his gruff voice softening. "A young woman of your—a—attractions should have many friends. Consider me one, Miss O'Connell," he continued, with a blending of the sincere and the grandiose in his manner,—"consider me a friend from this day, and let me thank you again for your offer. It was very praiseworthy of you, very."