“Then it is needless saying any more,” said the stranger, hastily, with a tone in which a little sharpness of personal disappointment and vexation seemed to mingle.
This conversation had been in an undertone, as attendants in a sick-room communicate with each other, without intermitting their special services to the patient. The Squire had been still in their hands for the moment, ceasing to struggle, apparently caught in some dim confused way by the sound of their voices. He looked about him confusedly, like a blind man, turning his head slightly, as if his powers were being restored to him, to the side on which John stood. A gleam of half-meaning, of interest, and wavering, half-roused attention, seemed to come over his face. Then he sank back gently on his pillows, struggling no longer. The paroxysm was over. The nurse withdrew her hand with a sigh of relief.
“Now,” she said, “if we leave him perfectly quiet, he may get some sleep. I will call you in a moment if there is any change.”
The woman saw, with her experienced eyes, that something more than could be read on the surface was in this family combination. She put them gently from the bedside, and shaded the patient’s eyes from the light, for it was nearly noon by this time, and everything was brilliant outside. The corridor, however, into which they passed outside was still dark, as it was always, the glimmering pale reflections in the wainscot of the long narrow window on the staircase being its sole communication with the day.
Mary put out her hands to her brother as they emerged from the sick-room.
“Is it you—you, John?”
“Yes,” he said, grasping them, “it is I. I do not wonder you are startled—I heard my father was worse—that there was a change—and came in without warning. So Nello has been sent away? May I see my little girl? You have been good to her, I am sure, Mary.”
“I love her,” said Mary, hastily, “as if she were my own. John, do not take my little companion away.”
He had been grave enough, and but little moved hitherto by the meeting, which was not so strange or unlooked-for to him as to them. Now his countenance beamed suddenly, lighting all over, and a tender moisture came to his eyes.
“It is what I have desired most for her,” he said, and took his sister’s hands again and kissed her cheek. “But send for my little Lily,” he added, with an indescribable softening in his voice.