"Oh! you did, eh? I suppose wild horses could not have dragged you in here to see me if it had been," said Ada, sarcastically.
"Is there anything I can do for you, my love?" asked Mrs. Vance, gracefully ignoring the spoiled girl's incivility.
"Nothing—only do not talk to me—talking hurts my head," replied the invalid, turning her face away.
"Ah, then, if I only disturb you I will take my leave," said the handsome widow, tripping out of the room.
"You were rather rude, my dear," said the nurse, surprised at her gentle patient's sudden petulance.
"I don't care," said Ada vehemently, "I hate that woman! I cannot tell why it is, but I have hated her ever since she came here to live, nearly two years ago. She knows I do not like her, but she affects unconsciousness of it. Keep the door locked, nurse, and do not let her come in here again—tell her I am too ill to see anyone. When she kissed me just now I felt as if a great slimy snake had crawled over me—ugh!" she said, shuddering at the recollection.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
The great agitation of poor imprisoned Lily Lawrence culminated in a severe fit of illness, and Doctor Pratt found need for all his skill before convalescence set in again. Mr. Colville prudently kept himself in the background now, so she was not troubled by the sight of the villain's face for several weeks. Haidee proved herself a careful and efficient nurse, and in three weeks' time poor Lily rose from her sick-bed pale, weak and weary, her girlish heart filled with heaviness and despair. She had again and again entreated old Haidee to go to her father, but in vain. The old woman stubbornly turned a deaf ear to all her entreaties. The old crone's husband Lily had not yet seen, though she frequently heard his gruff and brutal tones in the next room to hers, which appeared to be his sleeping-apartment.
She was sitting up one day in the great arm-chair puzzling her brain over some plan of escape. She looked very lovely still, though wasted by illness and sorrow. Haidee had provided her with a neat blue wrapper, and her fairness was almost dazzling by contrast with its becoming hue. Her rich golden hair was gathered in a loose coil at the back of her graceful little head, showing the whiteness of her neck, and the rosy tinting of her small, shell-like ears. A fancy seized her to look out of the window which was always covered with thick curtains. It was warm and sultry and she longed for a breath of the sweet and balmy air outside her gloomy-looking room.