"You have not had any dinner or supper," she went on. "Dr. Lash said if you wanted anything I might give you some gruel and milk. I've made it, and it is keeping warm at the fire. Will you take some?"
"No, I thank you; I can wait till breakfast. Then I'll set up at the table and eat a square meal; somehow, I'm not hungry. Wambush objected mightily to being jailed, didn't he?"
"You ought not to wait till breakfast," she said, looking at the fire; "you'd better let me give you some of this gruel."
"All right; you are the doctor."
She dipped up some of the gruel in a bowl, and, adding some milk to it, came back to him. But she was confronted by a difficulty. He could not eat gruel and milk from a spoon while lying on his back. He saw this, and put his hands on either side of him and started to sit up.
"Oh, don't!" she cried, setting the bowl on the floor and gently pushing him back on his pillow; "you must not!"
He laughed. "Just like a woman. You surely don't think I'm going to lie here for a week, like a sick cat, for such a little scratch. I've lost some blood, that's all." And before she could prevent it, he had drawn himself up and was smiling broadly.
"I can't look after sick folks," she said, in despair. "The doctor will blame me."
"I heard him say if you hadn't held my cut so well I'd have bled to death."
"Anybody else could have done it."