What if it were so, and this nurse were Genevra? The very idea fired Wilford’s brain, and when next his physician came he looked with alarm upon the great change for the worse exhibited by his patient.
“Shall I send for your friends?” he asked, and Wilford answered, savagely,
“I have no friends—none at least, but what will be glad to know I’m dead.”
And that was the last, except the wild words of a maniac, which came from Wilford’s lips for many a day and night. When they said he was unconscious, Marian Hazelton obtained permission to attend him, and again the eyes of the other occupants of the room were turned wonderingly towards her as she bent over the sick man, parting his matted hair, smoothing his pillow, and holding the cooling draught to the parched lips which muttered strange things of Brighton, of Alnwick and Rome—of the heather on the Scottish moors, and the daisies on Genevra’s grave, where Katy once sat down.
“She did not know Genevra was there,” he said; “but I knew, and I felt as if the dead were wronged by that act of Katy’s. Do you know Katy?” and his black eyes fastened upon Marian, who soothed him into quiet, while she talked to him of Katy, telling of her graceful beauty, her loving heart, and the sorrow she would feel when she heard how sick he was.
“Shall I send for her?” she asked, but Wilford answered,
“No, I am satisfied with you.”
This was her first day with him, but there were other days when all her strength, and that of Morris, who, at her earnest solicitation, came to her aid, was required to keep him on his bed. He was going home, he said, going to Katy; and like a giant he writhed under a force superior to his own, and which held him down and controlled him, while his loud outcries filled the building, and sent a shudder to the hearts of those who heard them. As the two men, who at first had occupied the room with him, were well enough to leave for home, Marian and Morris both begged that, unless absolutely necessary, no other one should be sent to that small apartment, where all the air was needed for the patient in their charge. And thus the room was left alone for Wilford, who grew worse so fast that Marian telegraphed to Katy, bidding her come at once.
Slowly the wintry night was passing, the fifth since Marian’s message was sent to Katy, and Morris sat by Wilford’s cot, when suddenly he met Wilford’s eyes fixed upon him with a look of recognition he could not mistake.