Mildred was obliged to allow herself to be treated as an invalid for the next few days; but when Dr. Heriot saw how the inaction and confinement fretted her, he withdrew a few of his restrictions, even at times going against his better judgment, when he saw how cruelly she chafed under her own restlessness.
This was the case one chill, sunless afternoon, when he found her standing by the window looking out over the fells, with a sad wistfulness that went to his heart.
As he went up to her he was shocked to see the marks of recent tears upon her face.
'What is this—you are not worse to-day?' he asked, in a tone of vexed remonstrance.
'No—oh no,' she returned, holding out her hand to him with a misty smile, the thin blue-veined hand, with its hot dry palm; 'you will think me a poor creature, Dr. Heriot, but I could not help fretting over my want of strength just now.'
'Rome was not built in a day,' he responded, cheerily; 'and people who indulge in fainting fits cannot expect to feel like Hercules. Who would have thought that such an inexorable nurse as Miss Lambert should prove such a fractious invalid?' and there was a tone of reproof under the light raillery.
'I do not mean to be impatient,' she answered, sighing; 'but I am so weary of this room and my own thoughts, and then there are my poor people.'
'Don't trouble your head about them; they will do very well without you,' with pretended roughness.
She shook her head.
'You are wrong; they miss me dreadfully; Olive has brought me several messages from them already.'