Heriot's Choice Part 71

'We are improving, Heartsease. I suppose you begin to find out that I am not as formidable as I look--that Dr. Heriot had a very chilling sound, it made me feel fifty at least.'

'I think you are getting younger, or I am getting older,' observed Polly, quaintly; 'to be sure you look very pale this morning, and your forehead is dreadfully wrinkled. I am afraid your arm has been troubling you.'

'Well, it has been pretty bad,' he returned, evasively; 'one does not get over a strain so easily. But, now, how is Mildred?'

The word escaped from him involuntarily, but he did not recall it. Polly did not notice his slight confusion.

'She is down in the drawing-room. I think she expects you,' she replied.

'Olive said she had a beautiful night, but of course the bruises are very painful; one of her arms is quite blackened, she cannot bear it touched.'

'I will see what can be done,' was his answer.

As he crossed the lobby his step was as firm as ever, his manner as gravely kind as he stood by Mildred's side; the delicacy of her aspect smote him with dull pain, but she smiled in her old way as she gave him her left hand.

'The other is so much bruised that I cannot bear the lightest touch,'

she said, drawing it out from her white shawl, and showing him the cruel black marks; 'it is just like that to my shoulder.'

He looked at it pityingly.

'And yet you slept?'

'As I have not slept for weeks; no terrible dreams haunted me, no grim presentiments of evil fanned my pillow with black wing; you must have exorcised the demon.'

'That is well,' he returned, sitting down beside her, and trying to speak with his old cheerfulness; 'reality has beaten off hypochondriacal fancies. Coop Kernan Hole has proved a stern mentor.'

'I trust I may never forget the lesson it has taught me,' she returned, with a slight shudder at the remembrance, and then they were both silent for a moment. 'Dr. Heriot,' she continued, presently, 'yesterday I wanted to thank you--I ought rather to have craved your forgiveness.'

He smiled at that; in spite of himself the old feeling of rest had returned to him with her presence; her sweet looks, her patience, her brave endurance of what he knew would be keen suffering to other women, won the secret tribute of his admiration; he would lay aside his heavy burden for this one hour, and enjoy this brief interval of peace.

'I do not wonder that you refused my thanks,' she went on, earnestly; 'to think that my foolish act of disobedience should have placed your life as well as mine in such deadly peril; indeed, you must a.s.sure me of your forgiveness, or I shall never be happy again,' and Mildred's lip trembled.

He took the bruised hand in his, but so tenderly that she did not wince at his touch; the blackened fingers lay on his palm as restfully as the little bird he had once warmed in his hands one snowy day. How he loved this woman who was suing to him with such sweet lips for forgiveness;--the latent flame just kindled burned with an intensity that surprised himself.

'Ah!' she said, mistaking his silence, and looking up into his dark face--and it looked strangely worn and hara.s.sed in the clear morning light--'you do not answer, you think I am much to blame. I have tried your patience too far--even yours!'

'I was angry with you, certainly, when I saw you down on those rocks jeopardising your precious life,' he replied, slowly. 'Such foolhardiness was unlike you, and I had reserved certain vials of wrath at my disposal--but now----'

He finished with his luminous smile.

'You think I have been punished sufficiently?'

'Yes, first stoned and then half submerged. I forgave you directly you called on me for help,' he returned, making believe to jest, but watching her intently all the time. Would she understand his vague allusion? But Mildred, unconscious that she had betrayed herself, only looked relieved.

'Besides, there can be no question of forgiveness between friends, and whatever happens we are friends always,' relinquis.h.i.+ng her hand a little abruptly.

He rose soon after that.

Mildred was uneasy; he was evidently suffering severely from his arm, but he continued to evade her anxious inquiries, a.s.suring her that it was nothing to the pain of her bruises, and that a wakeful night, more or less, mattered little to him.

But as he went out of the room, he told himself that these interviews were perilously sweet, and must be avoided at all hazards; either he must wound her with his coldness, or his tenderness would inevitably betray itself in some unguarded look or word. Twice, already, had her name lingered on his tongue, and more than one awkward pause had brought her clear glances questioning to his face.

What right had he to hold the poor blackened hand in his for more than a moment? But the sweet soul had taken it all so naturally; her colour had never varied; possibly her great deliverance had swallowed all lesser feelings for the time; the man she loved had become her preserver, and this knowledge was so precious to her that it had lifted her out of her deep despondency.

But as he set forth to his work, he owned within himself that such things must not be--it were a stain on his integrity to suffer it; from the first of Mildred's coming their intercourse had been free and unrestrained, but for the future he would time his visits when the other members of the family would be present, or, better still, he would keep Polly by his side, trusting that the presence of his young betrothed would give him the strength he needed.

Mildred did not seem to notice the change, it was effected so skilfully; she was always better pleased when Olive or Polly was there--it diverted Dr. Heriot's attention from herself, and caused her less embarra.s.sment; her battered frame was in sore need of rest, but with her usual unselfishness, she resumed some of her old duties as soon as possible, that Olive might not feel overburdened.

'It seems as though I have been idle for such a long time,' she said, in answer to Dr. Heriot's deprecating glance at the mending beside her; 'Olive has no time now, and these things are more troublesome to her than to most people. To-morrow I mean to take to housekeeping again, for Polly feels herself quite unable to manage Nan.'

Dr. Heriot shook his head, but he did not directly forbid the experiment. He knew that to a person of Mildred's active habits, anything approaching to indolence was a positive crime; it was better for them both that she should a.s.sert that she was well, and that he should be free to relax his vigilance; he could still watch over her, and interfere when it became necessary to do so.

Mildred had reason to be thankful that he did not oppose her exertions, for before long fresh work came to her.

The very morning after Dr. Heriot had withdrawn his silent protest, a letter in a strange handwriting was laid beside Mildred's breakfast-plate; the postmark was London, and she opened it in some little surprise; but Polly, who was watching her, noticed that she turned pale over the contents.

'Is it about Roy?' she whispered; and Mildred started.

'Yes, he has been ill,' and she looked at her brother doubtfully; but he stretched out his hand for the letter, and read it in silence.

Polly watched them anxiously.

'He is not very ill, Aunt Milly?'

'Not now; but I greatly fear he has been so. Mrs. Madison writes that it was a neglected cold, with a sharp attack of inflammation, but that the inflammation has subsided; he is terribly weak, and needs nursing, and the doctor insists that his friends should be informed.'

'But Dad Fabian is with him?'

'No, he is quite alone. The strangest part is that he would not suffer her to write to us. I suppose he dreaded our alarm.'

'It was wrong--very wrong,' groaned Mr. Lambert; 'his brother not with him, and he away from us all that distance; Mildred, my dear, you must go to him without delay.'

Mildred smiled faintly; she thought her strength was small for such a long journey, but she did not say so. Anxiety for his son had driven the remembrance of her accident from his mind; a slight attack of rheumatic gout, to which he had been subject of late years, prevented him from undertaking the journey as he wished.

'You will go, my dear, will you not?' he pleaded, anxiously.

'If Aunt Milly goes, I must go to take care of her,' broke in Polly.

Her face was pale, her eyes dilated with excitement. Olive looked on wistfully, but said nothing; it was never her way to thrust herself forward on any occasion, and however much she wished to help Mildred in nursing Roy, she did not drop a hint to the effect; but Mildred was not slow to interpret the wistfulness.

'It is Olive's place to nurse her brother,' she said, with a trace of reproof in her voice; but though Polly grew crimson she still persisted.

I did not mean that--you know I did not, Aunt Milly!' a little indignantly. 'I only thought I could wait on you, and save you trouble, and then when he was better I could----' but her lip quivered, and when the others looked up, expecting her to finish her sentence, she suddenly and most unexpectedly burst into tears, and left the room.

Olive followed Mildred when she rose from the breakfast-table.

'Aunt Milly, do let her go. Poor Polly! she looks so miserable.'

'It is not to be thought of for a moment,' returned Mildred, with unusual decision; 'if no one but Polly can accompany me, I shall go alone.'