“What!” he cried, with a look of dismay upon his pale face. “Are you really leaving, nurse?”
“Yes, Lord Bracondale. I have already sent my things back to the convent. I have come to wish you good-bye.”
“To wish me good-bye!” he echoed blankly, looking her straight in the face. “How can I ever thank you—how can I ever repay you for all your kindness, care, and patience with me? Sir Evered says that I owe my life to your good nursing.”
She smiled.
“I think Sir Evered is merely paying me an undeserved compliment,” was her modest reply.
He had taken her small, white hand in his, and for a moment he stood mute before her, overcome with gratitude.
“Sir Evered has spoken the truth, Nurse Jean,” he said. “I know it, and you yourself know it. In all these weeks we have been together we have begun to know each other, we have been companions, and—and you have many a time cheered me when I felt in blank despair.”
“I am very pleased if I have been able to bring you happiness,” she replied. “It is sometimes difficult to infuse gaiety into a sick-room.”
“But you have brought me new life, new hope, new light into my dull, careworn life,” he declared quickly. “Since I found you at my bedside I have become a different man.”
“How?” she asked, very seriously.