“Is she wounded? She would not have left me to you. What is the matter with her? Is she dead?”
Zoe struggled to say something, and failed, and Eirene read the truth from her broken accents.
“She is dead, then?” she said. “And I made her come with me!”
She would say nothing more, and the tears for which Zoe hoped would not come. Eirene allowed herself to be helped upstairs, and lay down obediently, but not to sleep. When the noise and confusion that reigned throughout the inn had at last subsided, Zoe was roused by hearing her voice. Sometimes she spoke in French or English, sometimes in an unknown tongue, which Zoe thought must be Scythian, rambling on and on, and moaning pitifully. Once she called out for her jewel-case, and Zoe, fearing that the other passengers would be disturbed, rose and brought it to her, leaving it on the bed, so that she might be sure it was safe. She held long conversations with some one, apparently urging some course of action, and Zoe guessed that her mind was recurring to the difficulty she had experienced in inducing Mrs Smith to accompany her on her quest, whatever it was. The delirium had passed off in the morning, but Eirene remained weak and feverish, and Zoe welcomed the appearance of the doctor, who came up from the scene of the accident with the rest of his patients in the emergency train as soon as it was light. Bustle was everywhere again, and the officials and Wylie had their hands full in producing order out of chaos. The most serious cases among the injured were to be sent back to Tatarjé, while those who were only slightly wounded, and the unhurt, were to proceed by road as fast as carriages could be provided to convey them, following the old route through the mountains which had preceded the railway, crossing the river by a Roman bridge at some distance lower down, and rejoining the line at the nearest station on the other side, where a train would be waiting to take them on to Therma. This would have been the natural course for Maurice and Zoe to follow, but there was Eirene to consider, and Zoe felt no surprise when the doctor remarked airily—
“She must not be moved, of course. A few days’ perfect rest and freedom from strain is necessary. You will be able to renew the dressings, mademoiselle, and I will leave you sufficient material. Your interesting sister is in no danger, but she will certainly not be fit to travel for a week.”
“Of course we must stay and look after her,” said Maurice, when he heard the verdict. “We can’t leave her here alone.”
This was Zoe’s own opinion, but for some reason Maurice’s ready agreement displeased her. “She has no claim on us whatever,” she said, rather tartly. “She simply tacked herself on to us.”
“What a low thing to say!” cried Maurice, really angry. “And the poor little girl in such trouble!”
“Of course she’s in trouble, but whose fault is it? You may say what you like, but you know you’d be horribly, frightfully angry if I went running about Europe and hooked myself on to a strange man and his sister.”
“That would be quite different. I mean, it would be quite different with strangers. She had sense enough to pick out us. At any rate”—Maurice had a dim idea that there was something not quite conclusive about his argument—“we ought to be very thankful that she did.”