"And Philippa?" asked the girl.
Mrs. Goodman hesitated, and into her face there crept the same dark look of hostility which it had worn on the previous evening. At last she answered coldly—
"Miss Philippa did not like illness."
"What do you mean?"
"She stayed a few days." Again the woman hesitated. Then her anger mastered her and she spoke scornfully and with intense bitterness. "She stayed a few days and then she left the house—said she could not do any good by staying. And Mr. Francis lying between life and death!"
She covered her face with her wrinkled hands and began to weep again, and it was some moments before she could proceed. When she did so, it was in a low, hurried tone, as though she wanted to get to the end of her story, as if the mere mention of the dreadful days which followed was more than she could bear.
"The time passed, and doctors came and went, and at last he recovered consciousness, but he wasn't the same. The first word he spoke was her name. After that he asked for her unceasingly. I remember a doctor coming—a very great man he was—and he said to my lady, 'I am hopeful, decidedly hopeful, but your son must be kept quiet, and perfectly contented. Where is this young lady he asks for? she must come immediately. If he is not kept quiet I will not answer for the consequences.'
"After he had gone, my lady turned to me. 'We will telegraph at once,' she said, 'Surely she will come.'
"Well she came, and she went to his room. He had been calling her just before, and when she came he did not know her. He was very ill that day, and he was wandering, and when he saw her he talked some childish nonsense about his boyhood.
"She didn't say a word as she came out, but that evening my lady spoke to her, and told her that she must have patience, that he would be better soon; but she only said, 'He is terribly disfigured.' Those were her very words. Not a word for the pity of it, or of comfort for his poor mother.