She looked up at him, half alarmed, half sympathetic. She was sorry, very sorry, that he should suffer. It was not possible (she thought) to be like the priest and the Levite, pass on on the other side, and pretend to care nothing for one’s neighbour. But then she ought to tell him to go away. So Agnes compounded with her conscience by uttering nothing; all she did was to look up at him with tender brown eyes, so full of pity and interest, that words would have been vain to express all they were able to say.
‘My father is dead in India,’ said Oswald. ‘You may fancy how hard it is upon us to hear of it without any details, without knowing who was with him, or if he was properly cared for. I have not had time for anything since but to attend upon my mother, and see to what had to be done.’
He felt that this was a quite correct, description; for had he not sacrificed the last hospital day to the shock of the news, if not to the service of his mother; and there had been things to do, hatbands, &c., which had kept him occupied.
‘I am very sorry,’ said Agnes, with downcast eyes.
‘You who are so tender and sympathetic, I knew you would feel for—my mother,’ said Oswald; upon which name the girl looked up at him again. To feel for his mother—surely there could not be anything more natural, more right, than this.
‘You would like my mother—everyone does. It is amusing the way in which people run after her. Not that there is any room for amusement in our mournful house at present,’ said Oswald, correcting himself. ‘This is the first day the sun has seemed to shine or the skies to be blue since I saw you last.’
‘I am very sorry,’ said Agnes again; and then, after a pause, she added nervously, ‘It is not that I think anything—and, oh, I hope you will not be vexed now that you are in trouble!—but you must not come with me. The Sister thinks it is not right, and neither do I.’
‘Not right!’ said Oswald, with an ingenuous look of surprise.
Agnes was driven to her wit’s end. ‘I do not want to seem absurd,’ she said, trembling, ‘and indeed there is no need for explanation. Please, you must not wait for me at the hospital, or walk back with me any more.’
‘Alas! have we not been planning to send little Emmy away? That means that I shall not have the chance, and that the brightest chapter in my life is almost over. Must it be over? You don’t know what it has been to me. You have made me think as I never thought before. Will you abandon me now, just when I feel on the threshold of something better?’