When the doctor's voice ceased, there was a strange, tense silence in the room for many minutes; and Christina, standing by the fireplace, felt as if she could almost see and hear the woman in the bed, gathering up her forces to meet this blow. Once the girl glanced at the white face and deep eyes, but she turned away her glance again, feeling it was not right that any other human being should gaze upon the tortured soul, that looked out of those eyes. Margaret herself first broke the silence.

"Will--it--be--long?" she asked.

"I think not," Fergusson answered gravely, "but in a case like this everything depends upon the temperament of the patient, his surroundings, his mental att.i.tude. Anxiety, worry, any mental strain would accelerate matters."

The white hands that all this time had been so still on the coverlet, clasped themselves together, and there was a new note of pa.s.sion in Margaret's voice, as she said--

"And--the mental strain is exactly what I cannot help, cannot prevent, cannot save him from."

"You must remember I am only giving you one man's opinion--only my own," Fergusson replied gently. "Would you like me to bring a London colleague to----"

"No--oh no!"--the look of fear he had before noticed in her eyes, leapt into them once more--"n.o.body else must come here, n.o.body else must see him. As it is, the risks"--she stopped suddenly, and ended her sentence in less agitated tones--"I am quite satisfied with your opinion, Dr. Fergusson," she said. "I would rather not have another doctor, and--you will respect my wish for silence about everything that has pa.s.sed in this house?"

"Certainly I will respect it; you can trust me. In the patient's own interest, I think I ought to see him again, perhaps in two or three days; but n.o.body excepting Miss Moore and myself will know anything about the affairs of your house."

Having given her a few technical instructions as to the treatment of the sick man, the doctor was ready to take his departure, and he and Christina left the house together, after the girl had for a moment been drawn into Margaret's arms, and gently kissed.

"Thank you for all you have done," the beautiful woman whispered. "I don't think I can ever be grateful enough to you. Perhaps, we shall not ever meet again--but--think sometimes of me--pray sometimes for me--little rest-bringer."

"That poor soul! that poor soul!" They were Fergusson's first words after he had turned the car out of the rough lane, into the main road.

"I daresay it was fanciful, but the words in the Litany haunted me when I watched her this morning: 'In all time of our tribulation--Good Lord, deliver us.' She looks as if she had been through such an infinity of tribulation."

Christina's eyes were still dim with the tears brought there by Margaret's parting words, and her voice was not quite steady, as she answered--

"Yes; the word seems to belong to her, but she gives me the feeling that she is so strong, so tender, in spite of, or perhaps because of, all that she has suffered. I--wish I could do something more for her."

"Perhaps the opportunity may yet be given you," Fergusson answered. "I never believe people come into one's life purposelessly: we meet them for some reason, and we get chances of helping them--even if sometimes they seem only like 'ships that pa.s.s in the night,' greeting us as they sail by."

CHAPTER XII.

"YOU ARE JUST 'ZACKLY LIKE THE PRINCE."

"The gentleman said he would be back in half an hour; he is staying a night at the inn, and he just wanted to see you and Miss Baba." Mrs.

Nairne delivered this long message to Christina, when she and her small charge came in from their afternoon walk a few days later, and at her words, Christina's heart gave a sudden leap.

Was it possible that the grey-eyed man of the rugged face, the man who had called himself Lady Cicely's cousin, could be driving that way again? And was he coming to see the child? She was secretly pleased to observe that the landlady had provided a tea of superlative excellence, and that the worthy Mrs. Nairne thought, as _she_ also thought, that Lady Cicely's cousin might perhaps partake of that meal with Baba and her nurse.

There was a happy smile on her lips, and her eyes shone brightly, as she moved to and fro about their little sitting-room, putting it tidy, and arranging in two of Mrs. Nairne's fearsome vases (cherished possessions of that good lady, be it known) a tangle of brown leaves and crimson berries, that she and Baba had brought in from the hedges.

The child's clear voice drifted in to her from the kitchen, where the small girl was proudly conscious of extreme usefulness, whilst she pattered to and fro behind Mrs. Nairne, and helped to arrange the tea-tray.

"We've got the best tea-set to-day," she announced to Christina in triumph, when she and the landlady entered the sitting-room together, "and I think the cakes is _beautiful_," she added, with a little sigh of bliss, as her eyes rested on the table, at which Christina had also glanced approvingly.

"I thought the gentleman might like a cup of tea," Mrs. Nairne said apologetically, "and I can't bear for there not to be enough to eat."

"I am sure there will be plenty for us all," Christina answered gravely, though her eyes twinkled; "and it is good of you to have taken so much trouble. I can a.s.sure you, Baba and I will appreciate all the good things you have given us, and we are as hungry as hunters."

The sight that greeted Rupert Mernside's eyes, when, a few minutes later, he came into the firelit room, made a picture that lingered in his mind for the rest of his life. There were two candles on the round table, at which the child and girl sat, but the room was really lighted by the ruddy glow of the fire, whose flames leapt about the great log of wood on the top of the coals, and shed a delicious radiance all over the low, old-fashioned apartment. Some dead and departed mistress of Mrs. Nairne, had given her the oak furniture, of which the landlady herself spoke deprecatingly, as "queer old stuff," and the firelight was reflected a hundred times in the highly-polished black of the oak, and the bright bra.s.s of handles and k.n.o.bs. The chintz that covered the furniture, had also come from a defunct mistress, whose taste had led her to love just those soft, dim colours, and the old-world patterns that best suited the oak of the furniture--and the whole result was supremely pleasing to an aesthetic taste. Flowers sent from Bramwell Castle, made a delicious fragrance in the air, and to the man, coming in out of the cold of a damp and foggy December afternoon, there was a peace in the atmosphere, that gave him a pleasing sense of home and restfulness.

The firelight shone full on Baba's delicately-tinted face, and golden curls; shone, too, on the dusky softness of her companion's hair, bringing out in it unexpected gleams of brightness, illuminating the girl's clear white colouring, and her sweet eyes, showing to the man who entered, the tenderness of the look that was bent on the little child beside her.

"Cousin Rupert!" Baba shrieked joyfully, scrambling from her seat, and flinging herself upon him, whilst Christina pushed back her chair more deliberately, and rose to greet their visitor. "We've cakes with sugar on them to-day, 'cos Mrs. Nairne thought you'd come to tea."

"Oh! she thought I should come to tea, did she?" Rupert answered, smiling, as he held out his hand to Christina, looking at her over Baba's curly head. The child was already in his arms, her soft face pressed against his, and his chin resting on her rippling curls, whilst he shook hands with her nurse, and said in his deep pleasant voice--

"I am glad I have just caught you both at tea, Miss Moore. Now you will let me have some tea, and then I shall hear how you both are, and be able to carry news of you to my cousin, at first hand."

Christina was far too guileless and simple of soul to read into Rupert's descent upon them, what was the actual truth--namely, that he felt impelled, as Baba's guardian, to keep a watchful eye upon the new importation Cicely had so impulsively introduced into her household; felt it indeed to be nothing more than his bare duty, to see that Baba's new nurse was all that Cicely enthusiastically believed her to be.

"Dear little Cicely's swans have before now turned out to be geese,"

Rupert had said to Wilfred Staynes, Cicely's brother, when he and that smart young soldier were returning from their motor trip across Suss.e.x.

"She insisted on engaging this lady nurse for the child, and practically took her without references. The references she gave us, were, to all intents and purposes, so much waste paper. The writers of them were all dead, or in the colonies."

"Cicely was always like that," Cicely's brother made reply. "She had the rattiest collection of sick and sorry animals in her youth, and of sick and sorry friends as she grew older. She has a way of stepping down into the highways and hedges, and compelling their inhabitants to enjoy her hospitality. It makes one feel one could always turn to Cicely if one went wrong, you know," he added thoughtfully; "she's always 'for the under dog,' as somebody once put it."

"Cicely is the dearest soul in the world," Rupert said quickly. "We all love her for her loving heart--but at the same time, I can't risk letting Baba fall into the hands of a stray adventuress, because Cicely's heart has been touched."

"If it's a question of adventuresses, I'll come and see the kid too,"

Wilfred answered laughingly. "I like the type; it amuses me. Bronze hair, green eyes, seductive manner. Oh! Rupert, my friend, if you think Baba is in the care of an adventuress, take, oh take me to call on her too!"

"What an a.s.s you are, Wilfred," Rupert answered, with a lazy laugh.

"Is it likely that even our dear and impulsive Cicely, would hand Baba over to the care of your adventuress type of woman? No; the only time I saw her, the girl seemed a most harmless, quiet little individual."

"You've seen her?"

"Yes; I saw her in the nursery at Eaton Square, making friends with Baba, but she made no impression upon me; she was just quite an ordinary-looking girl."

"Oh! la, la! then you may go alone to call on her at Graystone, and see that she is performing the whole duty of the nurse. The ordinary-looking girl makes no appeal to me."

His own, and Wilfred's idle words, flashed back into Rupert's mind now, as, across Baba's tangle of golden curls, his eyes looked down into the eyes uplifted to his--eyes to which the dancing firelight gave an oddly elusive effect. What colour were they? he wondered--grey, hazel, or green--deep soft green with great black pupils, and sweeping dark lashes, that curled upwards in a deliciously fascinating way. There was something child-like and appealing about those sweet eyes, something of the eternal child indeed, about her whole face, from the unclouded brow on which the dusky hair fell in soft tendrils and curls, to the half-parted lips, on which the smile over Baba's latest sally of wit, still lingered. There was nothing of the adventuress type about this girl, that was very certain, was his first thought; his second, that the uplifted face was in some way familiar to him, that quite lately he had seen it uplifted in precisely this way; and thirdly, he remembered how and when they had met.

"Why," he exclaimed, "how oblivious you must have thought me the other day! Surely you _are_ the young lady to whom my cousin and I gave a lift in the car?"

A vivid blush flooded Christina's face with colour, her eyes wavered under his glance.

"Yes, it was I who stopped your car, and I thought afterwards how dreadfully audacious and impatient I must have seemed. But I was anxious to get quickly to the doctor, that----"

"Not for this young person, was it?" Rupert interrupted, looking down at the child in his arms "she doesn't wear an invalid appearance."

"Oh! no, no, not for her." Christina spoke hurriedly, remembering the secrecy that had been enjoined upon her by the lady of the lonely house, and anxious to lead the conversation away as soon as possible from her visit to the doctor. But Rupert, having deposited Baba in her chair, seated himself beside her, and helped himself to a slice of Mrs.

Nairne's hot b.u.t.tered toast, continuing to talk placidly of the very subject the girl most desired to avoid.

"I am afraid somebody was really ill?" he said, and Christina noticed again what a musical voice his was. "You seemed to be desperately anxious to get the doctor as soon as possible."

"Yes," Christina, answered, trying to speak in matter-of-fact tones; "someone had asked me to fetch the doctor for them, and I didn't want to lose any time."