Tears started to Mrs. Franklyn's eyes as she busied herself about the patient, who did not answer one word when she spoke to her, but lay watching her face with dazed, uncomprehending eyes. The good lady sent Chester up to his room to put on dry garments, and brought some of her own for the strange young girl thrown upon her care.
She supposed that this was an attempted suicide, and wondered what terrible sorrow had driven this beautiful young girl to self-destruction.
She ventured to ask the patient the question, but Kathleen seemed dazed as yet, and did not comprehend anything very clearly. She answered to every question that was asked her a feeble: "I don't know."
"I must wait until she gets better," was her thought; and she put Kathleen to bed, carefully spreading out her long gold curls over the pillow to dry. Soon the girl fell asleep, and then Mrs. Franklyn turned down the lamp and slipped away to ask Chester all about it.
He could tell her nothing but that he had heard the dull thud of her body striking the water, and that he jumped into the river to save her. He believed it was a suicide, as he had heard no sound or cry.
"Some poor girl, perhaps, who can not make an honest living and has sought death in her despair," he said, and the gentle lady agreed with him.
"We will keep her here until she gets well and strong, and then we will see how we can help her out of her trouble," she added, kindly.
"Yes, we will take care of her," cried Chester Franklyn, eagerly. "It may be she has some deadly enemies from whom she sought to escape in that terrible fashion. We will say nothing of her being here until she herself tells us what to do."
When the morrow dawned Kathleen was ill with a low fever, and so it chanced that while her friends were frantic with anxiety over her fate, Kathleen lay passive in the river cottage, carefully watched by Mrs. Franklyn, who wondered much over her mysterious guest.