“Incurable! You won’t get better! Never get better until you—”
“Die? Precisely! That is what it means. I shall spend my life upon this couch, or being wheeled about in a bath-chair, suffering torments of pain and weariness until death comes to set me free—the kindliest friend that could step inside my door!”
“Oh!” cried Nan sharply. “Oh!” The tears rushed to her eyes, and she trembled from head to foot. It was terrible to listen to those words, terrible to her youth and strength to hear death spoken of in those yearning tones; her heart—Nan’s big loving heart—went out in a rush of sympathy towards the lonely sufferer. She stretched her hand towards him, and cried brokenly, “I’m sorry! Oh, I’m sorry! We knew, of course, that you were ill, but we never thought it was as bad as that.”
“We! Who are we?” Mr Vanburgh’s fingers closed over her hand, and he held it firmly in his own, while he gazed at her with a gentleness of mien before which Nan’s resolution died a sudden death.
“My—my sisters!” she stammered humbly. “Oh, Mr Vanburgh, forgive me. I’m Nan Rendell. I live in the house just across the road. I’m not an old woman at all, only a stupid girl dressed up. I never meant to come, but Chrissie dared me, and I thought I would come to the door and ring, to give her a fright. I never thought you would let me in. You had refused to see all other visitors. My father and mother called, and Mr and Mrs Maitland—”
“They did, and many others. It was very kind, but I felt too ill to receive them. With you, however, it was different, for I seemed to know you already. I had seen so much of your life through ‘my study window’—”
“Saw me! Then you knew all the time who I was? You knew—”
“I did! Yes. It was very interesting. I wondered how long you could keep it up.”
“But how—how?”
Mr Vanburgh smiled quietly.