“It will be time enough to tell him what my mother says if he mentions the subject,” she thought. “There is not much fear of his thinking I am staying here for the pleasure of his society.”
And in her absorbing care of poor Alys, and anxious watching for abatement in the unfavourable symptoms of the morning, she really forgot, feeling satisfied that she was acting in accordance with her parents’ wishes, any personal association of annoyance in her present surroundings.
Mr Cheviott marvelled somewhat at her calm taking-for-granted that she was to stay where she was; but, true to his agreement with Mr Brandreth, he said nothing. And the long, dull, rainy day passed, with no conversation between the two watchers but the matter-of-fact remarks or inquiries called forth by their occupation. By evening Alys’s feverishness and excitability decreased, yielding evidently to Mary’s scrupulous, fulfillment of the directions left with her.
“She has fallen asleep beautifully—she is as calm and comfortable as possible,” the young nurse announced triumphantly to Mr Cheviott, as she came into the kitchen where he, manlike, sat smoking by way of soothing his anxiety.
He looked up. Mary stood in the door-way, her eyes sparkling, a bright smile on her face. Just then there could not have been two opinions about her beauty. Mr Cheviott rose quickly.
“You are a born sick-nurse, Miss Western,” he said, heartily, speaking to her for almost the first time without a shadow of constraint in his voice. But, as he uttered the words, the smile faded out of Mary’s face and a white, wearied look crept over it. She half made a step forward, and then caught at a chair standing close by, as if to save herself from falling.
“It’s nothing,” she exclaimed, recovering herself instantaneously. “Don’t think I was going to faint. I never do such a thing. I was only giddy for an instant. I had been stooping over Al—Miss Cheviott’s bed to see if she was really asleep.”
“You have been doing a great deal too much, and I can never thank you enough—the truth is, I don’t know how to thank you without annoying you by my clumsiness,” said Mr Cheviott, remorsefully. But so genuinely cordial—almost boyish—was his way of speaking that Mary, even had she felt equal to warfare, could have found no cause of offence in his words.
“Don’t thank me, then,” she said with a smile, as she sat down in the old wooden arm-chair—the most comfortable the kitchen contained—which Mr Cheviott had drawn round for her to the side of the fire.
“I am too tired to discuss whether your ‘clumsiness’ or my ‘touchiness’”—a slight cloud overspread her face at the word, but only for an instant—“is to blame for my ungraciousness yesterday. If Mr Brandreth pronounces your sister decidedly better when he comes to-morrow I shall be well thanked.”