"Yes, yes!" cried the little gentleman. "I go to Pine del Rio with my dear ward here. To see her safe on board a good vessel, bound for the North; to say farewell to the joy of my old days, and put out the light of my eyes—that is my one sad desire, Señor Montfort. After that—I am old, I have but a short time left, and my prayers will require that."
"Well, then, it seems as if the first thing on all hands was to find a steamer sailing for home," said Jim. "If Mrs. Annunzio will take charge of you, Cousin Rita, I think that will be the best thing. Uncle John will send some one to meet you in New York and take you to Fernley. How does that suit you?"
Rita was silent. She had grown very pale. Delmonte looked at her eagerly, but did not speak.
"What do you say, little cousin?" repeated Montfort. "You have a mind of your own, and a pretty decided one, if I'm not mistaken. Let's hear it!"
Rita spoke slowly and with difficulty, her ready flow of speech lacking for once.
"Cousin Jim—dear Don Miguel—you are both so kind, so good. You too, Marm Prudence. I love the North. I love my dear uncle and cousin—ah, how dearly!—but—I do not want to go to Fernley."
"Not want to go!" repeated the others.
"No! indeed, indeed, I cannot go. I have been thinking, Cousin Jim, a great deal, while all these things have been happening; these wonderful, terrible things. I—I ought to have learned a great deal; I hope I have learned a little. I have talked enough about helping my country; too much I have talked; now I want to do something. I am going to work in one of the hospitals. Nurses are needed, I know, every day more of them. I do not know enough—yet—to be a nurse, but I can be a helper. I am very humble; I will do the meanest work, but—but that is what I mean to do."
She ceased, and all the others, looking in her face, saw it bright and lovely with earnest resolve. But Don Miguel cried out in expostulation. It was impossible, he said. It could not be. She was too young, too delicate, too—the proposition was monstrous. He appealed to Captain Montfort to support him, to exercise his authority, to persuade this dear child that the noble idea which filled her young and ardent heart was wholly impracticable.
Jim Montfort was silent for a time, looking at Rita from under his heavy eyebrows. Presently—"You mean it?" he said.