Lady Maxwell said nothing, but gathered him a little closer, and bent her face lower over him.
Then again came a long sobbing indrawn breath; James struggled for a moment; then opened his eyes and saw his mother’s face.
Mistress Margaret had finished with the water; and was now swiftly manipulating a long strip of white linen. Isabel still sunk on her knees watched the bandage winding in and out round his wrist, and between his thumb and forefinger.
Then he turned his head sharply towards her with a gasp as if in pain; and his eyes fell on Isabel.
“Mistress Isabel,” he said; and his voice was broken and untuneful.
Mistress Margaret turned; and smiled at her; and at the sight the intolerable compression on the girl’s heart relaxed.
“Come, child,” she said, “come and help me with his hand. No, no, lie still,” she added; for James was making a movement as if to rise.
James smiled at her as she came forward; and she saw that his face had a strange look as if after a long illness.
“You see, Mistress Isabel,” he said, in the same cracked voice, and with an infinitely pathetic courtesy, “I may not rise.”
Isabel’s eyes filled with sudden tears, his attempt at his old manner was more touching than all else; and she came and knelt beside the old nun.