Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/405

 398 “Nonsense, Lilian, to talk about deserting; didn’t I say we should send down a nurse?”

“Oh, mamma! do you think dear Fred would have let him lie there ill by himself? Send a nurse with me, of course! But I shall never be happy if I don’t go.”

And Lilian held to her purpose.

It was a merciful relief, notwithstanding the sadness of the occasion, from those days of doubt—the emergency demanded immediate action, and that necessity nerved Lilian in a moment. If the urgency had been less, and Lilian had had more time for thinking, perhaps she would have failed, so utterly despondent had she become, so faithless in her power to do anything good.

A short hour sufficed for her preparations, and, in company with a nurse engaged from the Institution, she started on her mission.

Frank Scott lay ill at the hotel of the small country town near where his property was situated.

The doctor, Mr. Simpson, was greatly relieved when he found a member of the family had arrived.

“What hope do you give us, sir?” inquired Lilian, anxiously.

“I have hope, or rather I should say we have hope; for I felt, under the circumstances, it would be more satisfactory to all parties to have a second opinion, and I accordingly sent for Dr. Lisle, the leading physician of our county, and I am happy to say his treatment is confirmatory of mine.”

There was a kind, fatherly manner in Mr. Simpson,—he must have been a man not under sixty,—which was particularly assuring to Lilian. He answered her many anxious questions in a perfectly frank, but at the same time hopeful tone.

“I presume I have been addressing Miss Temple,” he said, at the end of their conversation.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Lilian?—that is your Christian name?”

“My name is Lilian. I am Mr. Scott’s cousin. Mamma would have come down with me, but for ill health; she hopes, however, to be able to come shortly.”

“I am very glad you have been able to come,” replied the doctor, “for you are the very nurse he wanted. Your name is always on his lips.”

The doctor begged her not to make any great point of her arrival, but rather to enter the sick room occupying herself with some arrangements.

“I know it is hard to say this,” he added, “but it is absolutely necessary that he should be kept as quiet as possible, and I am sure I may trust to your good sense and discretion.”

The doctor was emphatic in his caution, for he had formed his own notion of the true relationship between the two cousins.

It naturally spread all through the neighbourhood that Mr. Scott’s cousin, the young lady to whom he was engaged, had come to nurse him. Mr. Simpson, who was held to have the best opportunities of knowing the truth, endorsed this opinion. It cast a charming halo of romance over the sick room; many kind hearts prayed that the poor young man might be spared, and that he and the young lady, who had risked the dangers of contagion for his sake, might be happily united.

Lilian at the first had plenty to occupy herself with—plenty of anxious thoughts for her patient. His life seemed to hang on a very thread; it was necessary, following out the doctor’s directions, to watch for the slightest change; her quick, sensitive eye had caused her more than once to summon the doctor, detecting through the slightest alteration the commencement of a serious crisis in the disease.

It was great tension on the nerves, this continued anxiety, and it was at first a welcome relief when the doctors pronounced her cousin out of immediate danger: in point of fact, there now seemed to be comparatively little for her to do, the nurse was so assiduous and attentive, and the arrangements which had been made worked so excellently well. Sitting quietly in his room while he dozed, the daylight almost excluded, she had far too much time for thinking, and to her dismay her thoughts lapsed into their old channel.

And coming there to nurse him? It was shame, she felt, to entertain a doubt concerning such a duty. But did it commit her in any degree? “She was only here as his nearest relation,” that was the theory she strove to hold to: “it meant nothing more than that; she was only doing her duty, what her brother would have done, or wished her to do, in his stead.” She must carefully guard the words she used towards her cousin—harden them, as it were, so that the fancy should not grow upon him that she had accepted his offer.

Ah, me! It was an immense power Frank Scott possessed in his very weakness. He would murmur her name faintly, and she, with tenderest pity, would hasten to his bedside and smooth his pillow, and soothe him with kindest tones, and let him hold her hand in his,—and then it did seem that he held her heart.

The doctor congratulated her on her care and attention. “I think,” said he, with a kindly smile, “that you may claim a great deal of the merit of saving his life. I am sure I can say nothing which will afford you greater pleasure.”

“I’m sure,” replied Lilian, “I cannot claim an atom more merit than the nurse—she has been everything to us.”

“I admit her merit, certainly; but you have watched so well and so closely, because you felt deeply—”

Lilian blushed crimson.

“I suppose,” said she, “now that the danger is over, I shall soon be able to return home.”

“What! leave your post. I trust not; besides now is the happiest time for you both—think what comfort you may be to him during his recovery. Why,” continued the doctor, good-humouredly, “I will issue a dozen certificates that your presence here is absolutely necessary.”

“But, really,” urged Lilian, “I don’t think I ought to remain any longer.”

“My dear young lady, I quite understand your feeling; but if you will accept the opinion of an old dragon of propriety like myself, you will have no hesitation in remaining. Indeed! I really can’t spare you. I consider,” he added, with a playful