“Yes, Mr Burgrave spoke to Dr Tighe. But don’t say you’re glad he didn’t look at me. It will make you miserable all your life to have even thought it.”
“Why, what is the matter?” asked Mabel impatiently, as Flora barred her way to the door.
“I can’t let you go into the room without realising it. His—his hair is all burnt off, Mab, and he’s fearfully scorched. You can’t see anything but bandages, and he is quite insensible.”
“It’s only the shock. He must come round soon.”
“That’s not all. I must tell you. The explosion seems to have paralysed all his faculties. He is deaf and dumb and blind—for the time.”
“Oh, for the time, of course. But he won’t be deaf when I speak to him. Don’t keep me here, Flora. I want to wake him.”
Flora drew back reluctantly, and Mabel ran across the courtyard. At the door of the sick-room, which was a makeshift structure erected since the earthquake at the corner where two verandahs joined, she met Dr Tighe.
“So I hear you want to play at nursing a little, Miss North?” he said, not unkindly, but by no means as if he regarded her intention as serious. “Do you think you won’t fall asleep? Can you keep cool, whatever happens? Not that you could do much harm if you went into hysterics,” he added, half to himself. “The poor fellow wouldn’t be disturbed.”
Even this slighting estimate of her powers did not provoke Mabel to protest. “What have I to do?” she asked, with determined calmness, and the doctor looked at her curiously.
“I want you to sit beside him and watch for any sound or movement. If there is the least change, send for me at once. I must spend the night over at the hospital, but I am leaving my boy in the verandah here, and he will fetch me whenever you want me.”