I did not say a word. I did not care much what they did to me, and there seemed to me no reason why I should not be cared for by this stranger. I suppose it was my weakness, but perhaps it was the consciousness that I would have done the same in her place. Poor girls instinctively depend upon each other in crises like these. And then this girl—Lois Barret was her name—had a jolly way that made even the most trying service seem like a game to her. She acted as if she really enjoyed doing something that another person would have considered a trial. She kept saying:
“It’ll be all kinds of fun. Come along, doctor, let’s get her right down now. Can you do it?”
“Easily,” declared the doctor.
“Ah!” said she. “It’s fine to have big, broad shoulders. I wish I were a man—like you.” She added the last two words softly, and the doctor chuckled. They wrapped the blankets around me, and the doctor lifted me up in his arms and carried me down the stairs. I was so weak, that even this slight movement affected me, and I fainted.
I must have been even iller than the doctor thought, for I did not know anything more for a long time. Then one day I opened my heavy eyes, to find myself in a big sunny room, and dreamily I watched Lois Barret hovering over me like a ministering angel. Then, in the evening, I have a dim remembrance of the doctor standing in the window and putting his arm around Lois, and it seemed to me he was kissing her. I called out:
“Oh, I am not asleep. I can see you.”
They both laughed, and Lois came over and gave me something to swallow and, as I dropped asleep, they seemed to grow into one person.
XXXVII
“LOIS, are you in love with Doctor Squires?” She burst out laughing.
“I’m in love with everybody and everything. Here, lie back there.”