“But it’s nothing infectious,” said Maurice, in astonishment. “I know they will want to nurse you.”
“Then don’t—tell them,” was the obstinate reply.
“My dear fellow, you must be properly looked after,” remonstrated Maurice. “They won’t tease you to talk, or anything of that sort,” with a vague effort to get at the root of the objection.
“My men”—with an attempt to glance in the direction of the guards, who were sitting playing cards on the floor—“look after—me all right—good fellows—do as they’re told. I will not—have any one else. Promise.”
There was so much determination in the weak voice that Maurice compromised. “Well, if Terminoff thinks your men are enough——”
“Promise,” persisted Wylie. “Not even—if—I mention names.”
“Whose names?” asked Maurice, taken aback. Wylie glanced at him with a kind of sick contempt.
“Zoe’s, of course,” he said irritably. “I might call out for her—no, of course I shan’t,”—with a momentary accession of strength,—“but I might. Don’t let her come.”
“Of course not,” said Maurice quickly; and Wylie sighed with something like contentment, and then began to murmur incoherently, while Maurice relieved his feelings by turning the guards out of the room, and forbidding cards anywhere but on the piazza outside. One of the men, who had acted as Wylie’s servant, was appointed head-nurse, and told that he would be held responsible for the patient, and might choose his own assistants, who must obey the doctor’s orders implicitly. The men were all willing enough, but a very primitive surgery was their only notion of curative treatment, and Maurice returned to the monastery full of anxiety. Zoe was waiting for him at the gate.
“Colonel Wylie is ill?” she said.