"Well, my dear, I will tell you the simple truth. I know you will be a brave girl. Your sister is in danger-a bad case of typhoid fever always means that, you understand; but I have hope, and so has my friend Ericson, that we shall pull her through. There is no cause for immediate anxiety; but much depends on the next twenty-four hours. Ericson is going to stay up to-night with your sister; and as for you, Miss Marjorie, you must go to bed and have a rest."

"I am sorry to tell you, Dr. Howard," said Dr. Ericson, "that Miss Marjorie has been behaving in a very natural but also a very reprehensible manner. She has insisted on living in her sister's room, has done herself no good, and--"

"Oh, well, as you say, that is natural," said Dr. Howard, who could read character like a book. "Poor child, she feels this terribly. Give her a sleeping draught, Ericson, won't you? And now, my dear, go to bed as soon as possible, and leave your sister's case in our hands, and," he added, dropping his voice to a whisper, "in the hands of a better Physician."

He left the room. When he had done so, Marjorie burst into tears.

"Oh, now I can breathe, now I can sleep," she said. "The hard and terrible strain has left my heart. Yes, Leslie, I shall sleep to-night; I am dead tired."

CHAPTER XXVI

ANNIE'S REQUEST.

The next day Marjorie awoke from her long sleep with a stunned feeling at her heart, but no longer quite such a keen sense of despair. She clung to Leslie, and would scarcely let her out of her sight. The doctors were rather anxious about her. She was scarcely likely to take the fever; but, if she exhausted herself in the way she was doing, she might be laid up with a severe nervous attack. Accordingly, Mrs.

Chetwynd implored Leslie to remain with them; and Leslie, having received a note from her mother to say that she was only too glad she was making herself useful, agreed to do so.

On the afternoon of that same day Marjorie went to lie down. There was absolute stillness in the house, for Lettie had gone out to spend the afternoon with a friend. The sick girl was fighting death in the room overhead, and Leslie found herself alone in the pretty boudoir. It was a charming room, furnished with every taste and luxury; but Leslie, as she lay back in a deep chair, had a strange feeling of inertia and la.s.situde all over her. She was glad to be with Marjorie; but the depression which had so often visited her of late was on this afternoon worse than ever.

Mr. Parker's att.i.tude to her yesterday kept recurring again and again to her memory. The cold, almost disdainful look he had given her, the effort to appear as usual before her mother and brother and sisters, the signal failure of that effort, kept coming back to her. He had done much for her; she had taken an enormous favor from his hands. Now what a terrible position she found herself in. Oh, Llewellyn was right after all! He would not take a money-favor from anyone. How she wished she had been equally determined.

In the midst of these meditations she heard a ring at the front door.

The next moment the footman came up, opened the door of the boudoir, and ushered in a visitor. Leslie started to her feet, a vexed exclamation came to her lips, and with difficulty remained unspoken, for Annie Colchester stood before her.

"I followed you here, Leslie," said Annie. "Can I see you at once, and by yourself?"

"Certainly," said Leslie. Her tone was cold. "Sit down, Annie."

Annie did not sit; she came quickly across the room, and looked full at Leslie.

"You know, of course," she said abruptly, "that I have come down from St. Wode's?"

"Yes; and how did you pa.s.s your final?"

"I took an ordinary-no more; and now I want some work to do."

"Of course."

"How cold you look, Leslie; so different from what you were when first I met you at St. Wode's."

"Never mind about me," answered Leslie. "Do you want me to help you?

Have you come on that account?"

"Yes. I have come to you on that account, for you can help me. I went to your house this morning and heard you were out. It was of the most vital importance that I should see you, so I got your address from your mother. She was unwilling to give it to me at first, for she said you were staying in a house of illness; but I begged so hard that at last she gave way, and here I am."

"Well. What is it?" asked Leslie. Her tone was still icy-cold, and the want of sympathy in her eyes caused Annie's dark red-brown ones to flash angrily.

"Oh, you are one of those dreadfully Puritan, goody-goody people," she said, "who always hate an unfortunate sinner. I would not like you to be my judge at the Great a.s.size."

"You must not talk to me in that tone," said Leslie, stung in her turn.

"You know what you have done. You have changed all my life."

"You don't mean to say you are still fretting over that matter. What can it signify to you whether Mr. Parker thinks badly of you or not. Just consider for a moment what would have happened if you had betrayed me that time."

"It might have been the better for me and for you too if I had spoken the truth," said Leslie. "I am sometimes inclined to believe that I did wrong to shield you."

"Wrong to shield me! Why, I should have been expelled, ruined; absolutely ruined for life."

"But I should not be feeling as bitter as I now do."

"You would have been so miserable you would not have cared to live,"

said Annie, with conviction. "But, now, don't let us hark back on that affair. I want you to do something for me, and at once. Can you possibly come out with me? I want you to come with me to Mr. Parker."

"To Mr. Parker, and with you? No, Annie; that I cannot do."

"But you must. Listen to me, Leslie."

Annie suddenly fell on her knees and took one of Leslie's hands in hers.

"How luxurious this room is," she said. She looked around it as she spoke, glancing at the curtained windows, the pictured walls, the comfortable chair in which Leslie was seated.

"Your friends are rich," she continued. "And although your home is plain enough, yet you have never wanted. I wonder, Leslie, if you were ever hungry, hungry to the point of starvation."

"What do you mean?" asked Leslie.

"Oh, you'd know very well if you had suffered. Now, I have. Let me show you the money I have in my pocket."

She slipped her hand into her pocket, took out her purse, and tumbled its contents into Leslie's lap.

"I don't want to see," said Leslie.

"But you must look. See, here is a ten-shilling piece, and here are four shillings. Ten and four make fourteen. That is all I possess, absolutely all, and I have not a friend in the world. My brother--"

"Your brother is in Australia?"

"Never mind where he is. If he keeps his promise to you I must never see him again; he must never come back to England. But listen; this has nothing to do with my brother-it has to do with me. I could scarcely live on less than two shillings a day, which means that I have exactly a week in which to spend my money. At the end of that time where am I?"

She stood up and held out her empty palms.

"Now listen, Leslie. I know Mr. Parker does not like me, and he never liked Rupert. It is true he was kind to me, for he helped to pay for my education at St. Wode's. If I had taken a first-cla.s.s at my final I could have got a good situation as a teacher, although I hate teaching, for I am too impatient and too dreamy; but as I have only barely taken an ordinary, all that sort of thing is hopeless. Besides, even if it were not hopeless, there is nothing vacant. I must live while I am waiting for a situation. Now, Mr. Parker wants a secretary. He wants a girl to come to his office every day to write his letters and to attend generally to his correspondence, and I intend to secure that post. I am told that he offers his secretary two guineas a week. I mean to be that secretary: I mean to earn that money. He won't give me the post, though, because he does not like me well enough; but if you come with me and plead for me, just because he likes you, because he loves you, he will give the post to me. Can you come now, at once? I was at his office this morning. I did not say who I was; and, do you know, there were twenty girls waiting to see him for this one situation. They all looked capable and clever, the sort who would write his letters and attend to his correspondence, and keep things going for him. But every one of those twenty girls are to be disappointed, for I am to be the successful one.

I shall be, if you will speak a good word for me. Come, Leslie, will you do this for me?"

"But do you quite realize what you are asking?" said Leslie; "to demand a favor of Mr. Parker? Annie, you cannot know what this means. I will speak to you frankly. My heart has been cold as a stone to you. You have made my life all gall and bitterness."

"Oh, folly!" said Annie. "Remember, I shall starve. Only fourteen shillings between me and the world!"

"But Mr. Parker will not give you the situation if I ask him," continued Leslie. "He scarcely speaks to me now if we meet. How can I ask him to do me a favor? Annie, you expect too much."