"'I shall put it away with the money you had when you came,' she said. She opened a paper, glanced at it, and wrinkled her white brow at me.
"'Are you the Bertram St. Ives O'Rourke?" she asked.
"'No, indeed,' I replied. 'He has been dead a long time. He was an admiral in the British navy.'
"'I have never heard of him,' she answered, 'but there is a man with that name who writes charming little stories, and verses, too, I think.'
"'Oh, that duffer,' I exclaimed, faintly.
"She laughed quietly. 'There is an article about him here—at least I suppose it is the same man.' She glanced down the page and then up at me. 'An angel unawares,' she laughed, and chaffed me kindly about my modesty.
"After that we became better friends every day, though she often laughed at the way some of the papers tried to make a hero of me. That hurt me, because really I had gone through some awful messes, and been sniped at a dozen times. The Spaniards had a price on my head. I told her that, but she didn't seem impressed. As soon as I was able to see people, my friends the Cuban cigar manufacturers called upon me, singly and in pairs, each with a gift of cigars. These are out of their offerings. The more they did homage to me, the less seriously did Miss Hudson seem to regard my heroism. But she liked me—yes, we were good friends."
O'Rourke ceased talking and pensively flipped the ash off his cigar. Leaning back in his chair, he stared at the ceiling.
"Well?" inquired his friend. O'Rourke returned to the narration of his experience with a visible effort.
"After awhile she read to me, for half an hour or so, every day. One evening she read a ballad of my own; by gad, it was fine. But then, even the Journal sounded like poetry when she got hold of it. From that we got to talking about ourselves to each other, and she told me that she had learned nursing, after her freshman year at Vassar, because of a change in her father's affairs. She had come South with a wealthy patient, and, after his recovery, had accepted the position of matron, or head nurse, of that little hospital. In return, I yarned away about my boyhood, my more recent adventures, my friends, and my ambitions. At last my doctor said I could leave the hospital, but must go North right away. My leg was healed, but otherwise I looked and felt a wreck. I was so horribly weak, and my nights continued so crowded with suffering and delirium, that I feared my constitution was ruined. I tried to keep myself in hand when Miss Hudson was around, but she surely guessed that I loved her."