Edith Lyle

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Hush, Godfrey, if you want me to stay you must not talk,” Gertie said, laying her hand upon his lips.

He kissed it, of course, and when she snatched it away, told her to put it back again if she did not want him to roll out of bed with the ship, which was lurching awfully! And she put it back and held it there so tight that he could neither kiss it nor speak, nor scarcely breathe.

“Godfrey,” she said a little sternly, when the doctor had gone out, “if you do not behave and stop talking and trying to kiss me, and if you attempt to roll out of bed, or get up, no matter how much the ship rocks, I will not stay with you a moment, but go home in the next train.”

This had the desired effect and brought forth earnest protestations of intended good behavior from Godfrey, who promised not to move but “to stand to his guns,” even if the ship should turn a complete somersault, which he guessed it would, judging from the way it was reeling and tossing now.

After that he was comparatively quiet, or if he became very restless and showed a disposition to repeat his tumbling exploits when the sea was badly in his head, a word from Gertie controlled him and kept him on his pillow. But his fever ran higher and higher every day, and his pulse beat faster and faster as the imaginary ship went plunging, through the waves which threatened to engulf it.

Gertie had told him she was his sister, that his father had written so from London, and once when he seemed something like himself she read the letter to him, but he repelled the idea with scorn. She was not his sister. He did not want any more sisters. She was Gertie,—his Gertie,—his in spite of everybody, he said, and he seemed to know just when she was with him, even if he did not see her, and when she left the room he would moan and rave and talk until she came back, and by a touch of her hand or a single word made him quiet again.

And so the days went on, and the fever increased, and the vessel rocked worse and worse, and Godfrey’s brain grew more and more affected, and Gertie’s heart was very sore with the fear that he would die. “Brother” she called him now when she spoke to him, and he was no longer furious as he had been at that name coming from her lips. He did not seem to know what she said, only that she was with him,—that it was her hand which gave the medicine he would take from no one else,—her hand which bathed his temples and kept him firmly in his place when the sea was doing its worst,—her hand which rescued his poor, aching head from the stewardess, who was boiling water in it to make him some beef-tea. Oh, what dreadful fancies he had,—fancies which were wearing him out so fast, and which nobody could manage but Gertie. And her strength was giving way, and the roses were fading from her cheek, when one morning, about ten days after her arrival in New York, a servant knocked at the door and ushered in Miss Rossiter.

She had returned from Washington the night before, and, finding the note which had been sent to her when Godfrey became so ill, had come immediately after breakfast to see how he was. With a feeling that it would not be proper for her to go into his sick-room, Alice, who was stopping up town, remained at home, bidding Miss Rossiter give her love to Godfrey, and tell him she would come if he wished to see her.

Mrs. Wilson was out marketing when Miss Rossiter came, and whatever information that lady received concerning her nephew, she had from the servant who escorted her to his room.

“His sister with him! I did not know she had returned,” she said, in some surprise, when in reply to the question, “Who takes care of him?” the servant said: