Queenie quietly took her place.
"You have sent for me," she said softly. "I am sorry to hear you have been so ill. It is a wet night, but I could not help coming," she continued, trying to speak naturally, but she could not; the change in the sick man appalled her. She understood, as she looked at him, that he was slowly but surely dying.
"They tell me I have some months still before me; that's bad hearing for those who wait upon me, as I am likely to trouble them for some time," with a touch of his old grimness. "Well, girl, so you have come through the wet and dark, just to gratify a sick man's whim?"
"I would do more than that to oblige you, sir," returned Queenie, with genuine compassion in her voice. The wan suffering face, the wasted hand, stirred a world of pity in her soul. Lonely, unloved, and dying—resentment faded out of her memory at a spectacle so pathetic, so truly pitiful.
"What! do more than be sorry for me?" with sardonic humor in his voice. "You would give more than a drop of water to poor Dives in torment? Do you remember, girl, that you dared to pity me before?"
"My pity will not harm you, sir."
"Ay, why not?"
"Now you are so very ill, it may even do you good to remember that we feel no bitterness towards you, that we forgive all the wrong done to us. Why do you look towards that door? do you want anything?"
"That woman has forgotten my medicine," he muttered, "and I have the strange sinking again. Hirelings are not worth the price of the bread they eat."
"Let me give it you," returned Queenie, rising, and mixing the draught; but he shook his head. "You must call her; I cannot raise myself, and the least movement gives me pain."