“Take this,” and, quite as a matter of course Imelda drank the cooling drink.
“Now,” continued Mrs. Boswell, “go to your room and lie down.” But this time she was not so readily obeyed. Imelda’s frame shook as with a chill.
“I would rather not. Please let me remain where I am. I shall soon recover and be all right again.”
“No! no! the sick room is no place to sleep. I insist that you go to your own room and bed, if you would avoid being sick yourself.”
But Imelda on no account would have traversed the lonely hallway again tonight, for fear of meeting in some shadowy nook the man she had just left below in such a storm of passion. Mrs. Boswell soon realized that for some unaccountable reason Imelda seemed afraid, though this was a weakness she had not hitherto noticed in the girl, but she understood too well that she was in need of perfect composure and rest, and the sick room was no place for these. Stepping to the bedside of the sleeping patient she bent over her and listened for a moment to the quiet breathing; then she said:
“Come, I will go with you. It will be perfectly safe to leave our patient for a few moments.” Then taking the agitated girl by the hand, she led her through the hallway to her own room. Lighting the gas jet she next turned down the bed clothes and quietly but quickly assisted her to disrobe and helped her into the snowy night robe. She would then have tucked her into her bed but Imelda refused, as she wished to fasten the door after the retreating form of the nurse, who thereupon returned to the bedside of the sleeping Alice to watch the night away when she herself had expected to spend it in needed rest and sleep.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Since recording the events of the last chapter, weeks of summer sunshine have passed away. Alice, dressed in a soft fleecy white cashmere wrapper, is reclining in her own cozy room, upon a comfortable lounge which has been drawn closely to the open window from where she can watch the golden rays of the setting sun as it disappears beyond the distant hills. Pale and wan she looks, but the sparkle of returning health is in her eyes as they rest now and then upon the forms of her two little girls who are seated in childish fashion upon the floor, and with their baby fingers trying to wind wreaths of ferns and flowers that are heaped in a low basket that has been placed with its contents at their disposal.
Imelda in one of her soft gray gowns was seated in a low rocker. The book from which she had been reading was lying unnoticed in her lap; her eyes, too, were wandering through the open window to enjoy the golden glory of the setting sun. For a while nothing was heard but childish voices in childish glee. Both fair women were busy with their own thoughts. Imelda had lost some of her wild-rose bloom. The clear-cut features were almost colorless as marble. There was a constrained look upon them; yet now and then they would brighten as with an inward light, and reflect the happiness that she, in those moments, felt; but they soon gave way again to that other look, a deep sigh betokening the change of thought.
As the last rays of the sun died out in a golden halo, Alice slowly turned her head and for a while lay watching her friend. “A penny for your thoughts, my dear,” she said with a smile, thus recalling her to present things.