“Yes, ever since the doctor left,” she answered. “Mildred is with Clubs. I don’t believe she’d care a bit if you should die.”
“Mildred—Mildred,” Lawrence repeated, as if trying to recall something in the past. “Then it was you who were with me in all that dreadful agony, when my life came back again? I fancied it was Mildred.”
Lilian had not the courage to undeceive him, for there was no mistaking the feeling which prompted him to smooth her golden curls and call her “Fairy.” Still she must say something, and so she said:
“I held the cup to your lips a little while ago.”
“I know you did,” he answered. “You are a dear girl, Lilian. Now tell me all about it and who saved my life.”
“Waked up in the very nick of time,” muttered the Judge, who all the while had been in the next room, and who had been awake just long enough to hear all that had passed between Lawrence and Lilian. “Yes, sir, just in the nick of time, and now we’ll hear what soft-pate has to say;” and moving nearer to the door he listened while Lilian told Lawrence how Oliver had taken him from the river and laid him under a tree, where he was found by two of the villagers, who brought him home.
“Then,” said she, “they sent for the doctor, who did all manner of cruel things, until you came to life and went to sleep.”
“And Mildred wasn’t here at all,” said Lawrence sadly. “Why did she stay with Oliver? What ails him?”
“He had the nose-bleed, I believe,” answered Lilian. “You know he’s weak, and getting you out of the water made him sick, I suppose. Mildred thinks more of Oliver than of you, I guess.”
“The deuce she does,” muttered the Judge, and he was about going in to charge Lilian with her duplicity when Mildred herself appeared, and he resumed his seat to hear what next would occur.