I stood gazing down at her in a stupor of amazement. Louise here, hiding at the lodge, ill and alone! Rosie came up to the bed and smoothed the white counterpane.
“I am afraid she is worse to-night,” she ventured at last. I put my hand on the sick girl’s forehead. It was burning with fever, and I turned to where Thomas lingered in the hallway.
“Will you tell me what you mean, Thomas Johnson, by not telling me this before?” I demanded indignantly.
Thomas quailed.
“Mis’ Louise wouldn’ let me,” he said earnestly. “I wanted to. She ought to ’a’ had a doctor the night she came, but she wouldn’ hear to it. Is she—is she very bad, Mis’ Innes?”
“Bad enough,” I said coldly. “Send Mr. Innes up.”
Halsey came up the stairs slowly, looking rather interested and inclined to be amused. For a moment he could not see anything distinctly in the darkened room; he stopped, glanced at Rosie and at me, and then his eyes fell on the restless head on the pillow.
I think he felt who it was before he really saw her; he crossed the room in a couple of strides and bent over the bed.
“Louise!” he said softly; but she did not reply, and her eyes showed no recognition. Halsey was young, and illness was new to him. He straightened himself slowly, still watching her, and caught my arm.
“She’s dying, Aunt Ray!” he said huskily. “Dying! Why, she doesn’t know me!”