"He'll be sorry for that, indeed," said the old woman. "Sure, you'd best go up and see him yourself."
"Oh, no," said Louise, shrinking back, "unless—his life is not in danger, I hope?"
"Danger, is it," echoed old Mamie, indignantly, though not without a momentary glance of uneasiness. "Why would he be in danger? Sure he wasn't so much hurted as that. He bled hardly at all only for a little cut on the head, and sure he has all he wants, and a nurse coming from Dublin and one of the nuns sitting with him now. It'd be a bad job if he was in danger, only twenty-four year old, and having such a nice way of living, and, indeed, he has the prayers of the poor. Go up the stairs and see him—here's his reverence coming, and might want me," she continued, as a car stopped at the gate.
Reluctantly, yet not knowing how to draw back, and unwilling to meet the priest, whom she knew slightly, Louise went up the narrow staircase. She knocked at a door standing ajar, and hearing a low "come in," entered. It was a small bare room enough, no carpet save one narrow strip, whitened walls, and a great fire smouldering under the chimney-board of black painted wood. Even at that first glance she noticed that the only attempt at ornament was a vase containing a bunch of the red-seeded wild iris; she remembered having gathered and given it to the Doctor a little time before as a "yerb" sometimes in request amongst his patients.
The fading light fell on the low iron bed upon which the young man lay, propped up with pillows. His face was much altered by these two or three days of suffering. The fair hair was covered by a bandage and the blue eyes looked larger for the black shades beneath them. But as he saw who his visitor was, a smile, very sweet and radiant, lighted them up, and a little colour came into the pallid cheeks. A nun, dressed in black and with a heavily-veiled bonnet half concealing her face, sat by his bedside, and looked with curiosity at the girl as she came in and gave her hand to the patient.
"I have come to ask how you are," she said, "and to tell you how very sorry I am—we are—for your accident. I am doubly grieved because—" and she stopped, embarrassed at having to speak before a third person. The Doctor's eyes were fixed on her face with the same glad smile.
"I wanted to see you," he said gently, "but I never thought you would come to this poor place. I wanted to tell you I had seen old Regan before I was hurt, and I did my best for him, and I think he won't die yet awhile."
"I am sorry," began Louise again, and then hesitated. How could she explain for how much she was sorry? How could she at this moment make any explanation at all? "I am going away," she went on—"I am going to England with my brother to-morrow. I have come to say good-bye."
The eyes that rested on her lost none of their glad look of content; she was not sure if her words had been understood, and went on talking rather hurriedly of her brother's arrangements, and who was to take his place, and of the long journey to Yorkshire.
"And now I must go," she concluded, "for I have a good deal to do at home."