I walked home that night worrying considerably about poor Cassidy and wishing to Heaven that the trap was ready to start at once. I had reached the crossing-stones in the little stream, where my old and new paths forked out. It was dusk, and I was not thinking of whom I might meet, so I started at the sight of Mrs Mallandane a few paces off coming towards me, evidently to meet me.
“Oh, I have waited for hours to meet you!” she began without any ceremony, and talking nervously and fast. “I thought you had gone already, and yet I feared to annoy you by going to your office. Look here—look! Tell me, is this true? Oh, you can’t see—I forgot; it’s too dark. Here in the paper they say you are going down the line to-night to bring in someone who is ill, very ill with fever. Tell me, is it true?”
“It is quite true. I leave to-night after nine,” I answered—I hope without betraying surprise; but I could not help noticing that she did not mention Cassidy’s name, and that she was painfully excited. I drew no conclusions—I had no time for thought; but these things left a weight on my heart for all that, and it was not lightened as she went on.
“I have come to ask you something. You will please bring him to my house. I must nurse him! He must come to me!” This was not a favour sought, it was rather a direction given, and there was only the slightest note of interrogation in her voice. I could only repeat in surprise: “To your house, Mrs Mallandane?”
“Yes—yes! You will do that for me, please?”
“I am sorry, but I do not think that would be right. His place is clearly in the hospital, and I have no right to take him elsewhere.”
“You refuse? Oh, you cannot refuse me!”
“Mrs Mallandane, you put it very harshly. You must see that I cannot do otherwise. I know of nothing to justify me in not sending him to hospital. It will be better for him, and far better for you.”
She drew a sharp breath and faced me drawn up to her full height, looking me straight in the eyes.
“I half expected this,” she said. “I only asked you because I feared to worry him. Your refusal is nothing. He will come to me all the same. You will not refuse to take a letter to him, will you, if I detain you a few minutes longer?”