'Dr. Heriot said I should have no chance, and Richard was as bad. Well, good-bye,' trying to rally her spirits as she saw Mildred looked really pained. 'I envy you your labour of love, Mildred; it is sweet—it must be sweet to be really useful to some one;' and the sigh that accompanied her words evidently came from a deep place in Ethel Trelawny's heart.
CHAPTER XV
THE GATE AJAR
Oh, live!
So endeth faint the low pathetic cry
Of love, whom death hath taught, love cannot die.'
Poems by the Author of 'John Halifax.'
'His dews drop mutely on the hill,
His cloud above it saileth still,
Though on its slope men sow and reap:
More softly than the dew is shed,
Or cloud is floated overhead,
He giveth His beloved sleep.'—E. B. Browning.
The fever had run its course,—never virulent or excessive, there had still been no abatement in the unfavourable symptoms, and, as the critical days approached, Mildred's watchfulness detected an increased gravity in Dr. Heriot's manner. Always assiduous in his attentions, they now became almost unremitting; his morning and evening visits were supplemented by a noonday one; by and by every moment he could snatch from his other patients was spent by Olive's bedside.
A silent oppression hung over the vicarage; anxious footsteps crept stealthily up to the front door at all hours, with low-whispered inquiries. Every morning and evening Mildred telegraphed signals to Roy and Polly as they stood on the other side of the beck in Hillsbottom, watching patiently for the white fluttering pendant that was to send them away in comparative tranquillity. Sometimes Roy would climb the low hill in Hillsbottom, and lie for hours, with his eyes fixed on the broad projecting window, on the chance of seeing Mildred steal there for a moment's fresh air. Roy, contrary to his usual light-heartedness, had taken Olive's illness greatly to heart; the remembrance of his hard words oppressed and tormented him. Chriss often kept him company—Chriss, who grew crosser day by day with suppressed unhappiness, and who vented her uncomfortable feelings in contradicting everything and everybody from morning to night.