"Better. Where is Derrice?"
"I don't know; out somewhere. I wish she would get home without hearing. Some one will have the kindness to frighten her to death. Sharks and tommy cods, here she comes! Look at your mother trying to stop her. What wild geese women are!"
There was no stopping Derrice. With a deathly white face, and round, startled eyes, she flew straight to the bed, and, seeing the spots of crimson on her husband's bandaged head, slipped down beside him, and promptly fainted.
"She ought to have been kept out," said Mrs. Prymmer, in annoyance, while she went to a drawer for hartshorn.
In a few minutes the girl had recovered, and, seizing one of her husband's hands, knelt on the floor beside him, and buried her face in the bed-clothes. Not a word would she speak, even when addressed, until an hour had passed, and Mary had rung the supper bell from below.
"Well, I suppose we've got to eat," said Captain White, sauntering along the hall, and looking in the door. "You don't feel like coming down, Justin?"
"I believe I will lie still; my head is light yet."
"I will stay with him. Go down, you all," and Mrs. Prymmer stared at Derrice, whom she never mentioned by name, if she could possibly avoid doing so.
The girl raised her pale face. "I will stay with him."
"No," said Mrs. Prymmer, obstinately. "You go down. I am his mother."