The restless eyes were still for a moment; then the head upon the pillow moved as if essaying a bow, and the right hand was feebly lifted.
She took his hand as if in greeting, and said again, speaking softly and clearly:
'Won't you go and speak with my Aunt Charlotte?'
A startled look came into the eyes; a look of distress crossed the face. He made a feeble gesture with the right hand; a great sigh escaped his lips, and then they parted.
'Strange,' they muttered feebly, 'cruel—mistaken—heartless!' His hand dropped heavily, and, quick as thought, Miss Jenrys lifted her head and drew back, her face one rosy glow from temples to chin; and now the sweet Quakeress interposed with womanly tact:
'He does not know thee, dear; and perhaps our presence may disturb him, in this weakened state.' She bent over the sick man for a moment, scanned the pale, handsome features closely, gently put back a stray lock of hair that had escaped from beneath the bandage and lay across the white full temple. Then she turned to the doctor:
'In the absence of nearer friends, doctor, we will stand in their stead. Will you give him your best care and let nothing be lacking? When we can serve him in any manner, thee will inform us through Mr. Masters, I trust; and, with your permission, I will call to ask after him each day until he is better.'
Sweet soul! How plain to me was the whole tender little episode! I could imagine June Jenrys telling the story of her rupture with young Lossing as frankly as she had written it to her friend Hilda O'Neil, and more explicitly, with fuller detail. I could fancy the sweet sympathy and tender admonitions of the elder woman; and here, before me, was the visible proof of how she had interpreted the heart of the girl, at once so proud, so honest, and so fearless in an emergency like this.
Had the sweet little Quakeress come to the bedside of this suffering young stranger because he was a fellow being, friendless, alone, and in need of help and kindly care, or had she come because she believed that June Jenrys possessed a heart whose monitions might be trusted, and that the man she had singled out from among many as the one man in the world must be a man indeed?
Be this as it would, and whatever the frame of mind in which she approached that white cot at her niece's side, I knew, by the lingering touch upon the pale forehead, the deft, gentle, and quite unconscious smoothing of the white counterpane across his breast, that the pale, unknowing face had won its way, and that what she took away from that hospital ward was not the tenderly carried burden of another's interest and another's anxiety, but a personal interest and a personal liking that could be trusted to sustain itself and grow apace in that tender woman's heart.