Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/168

142 “I mistake not,” he ventured at length, “she will probably be quite herself to-day, having regained consciousness several times  lately. It would be well, should she recover sufficiently to ask after thy brother, not to  allow her to think he has come to harm. A shock like that would thrust her lower than  she has yet been.”

“But what shall we say?” faltered Jacqueline. “I must not tell an untruth.”

“Wouldst thou tell her the broad, brutal facts, and thereby cause her death?” demanded the doctor sternly. “Nay, it is only necessary to say that since she had been suffering with the plague, it was deemed wisest to send him away for a time, lest he contract  the disease. She will be satisfied with that for the present.” Jacqueline acquiesced in  this, and the two went downstairs to acquaint  Jan Van Buskirk with the news of the improvement in Vrouw Voorhaas’s condition. Jan was sitting in the sunny, immaculate kitchen reading his big Bible, one of the few