"Who are you?" he exclaimed, shrinking back and trembling violently. "Why have you come here? I tell you I am all right in this place; you can't do me any harm now; I am safe—safe—why——"
"I have not come to do you any harm," the doctor answered soothingly, hiding the surprise he undoubtedly felt. "I am only a doctor who wants to make you well. You have been ill, haven't you?"
"Well, what of that?" the other answered sullenly, his eyes furtively watching Fergusson's face, his weak mouth quivering. "I don't want a doctor, even if I have been ill. I can do very well without a doctor. Why did you come?"
Christina stepped softly to the bedside, and her voice was very gently. "You remember me?" she said. "I came to help you last night; and I was told to tell you now as a special message, that Madge sent the doctor, that she begs you to tell him all about your illness. You can trust Dr. Fergusson," the girl went on earnestly. "He will not tell anybody that he has seen you. You can safely trust him."
"We are trusting too many people," came the querulous retort. "First Elizabeth was busy, and you came to me last night, and you are a total stranger. Though you were so kind to me, it is no use to pretend you are not a stranger. Yet I had to trust you, and now I have to trust the doctor. There are too many people in it now."
"This young lady, Miss Moore, and I, know absolutely nothing about you, or about the lady of this house," Fergusson said firmly, but soothingly. "We do not even know your relationship to one another. Your secrets are quite safe with us, because we have no idea what those secrets are. Therefore, you can safely trust us. And, in any case, I can answer for Miss Moore, as for myself—in any case, we shall keep silence about everything we have seen in this house." The sick man muttered one or two more feeble remonstrances, after which, with the sudden abandonment of his position, so characteristic of a weak nature, he said resignedly:
"Well, well, it is no use talking—it is never of any use for me to talk—and if Madge wishes me to be overhauled, so be it. I will put myself into your hands, but, understand, I do it under protest."
Denis Fergusson only nodded and smiled in response, saying to Christina—
"Now, if you will go and have that cup of tea, I will do my best for the patient here, and come to fetch you in a few minutes"; and the girl, taking the hint, left the two men together, and returned to the other room, where she found the beautiful lady lying with eyes wistfully turned towards the door, whilst Elizabeth vainly implored her to drink the tea she had made.
"I couldn't think of tea, or of anything else till you came back," the beautiful woman exclaimed, stretching out her hands to the girl, with feverish eagerness. "Was he vexed—my poor Max—was he dreadfully vexed when you took the doctor to his room?" Christina was conscious of a sudden wonder. Why, she speculated, did this woman's voice drop into accents of such divine tenderness when she spoke of the sick man? What attraction could that weak, querulous invalid possess for this stately, beautiful creature, who, to the girl's admiring eyes, seemed as far above him as a star is far from the earth. Why did she love him, as she most obviously did, with that intense, overmastering love which in a woman of this calibre almost approaches to the divine?