Thus it was that when the dreary little cavalcade reached home at last everything was in readiness for its reception.

There was no difficulty nor delay in getting upstairs, and in an incredibly short time the place had a.s.sumed the air of hushed solemnity that always seems to overhang the spot where illness is.

Nan crouched outside the threshold of the sick-room and listened to the low sounds within with a feeling of overwhelming guilt at her heart.

She dared not go in.

At last the door was opened, and the physician stepped forward. He saw Nan cowering in the gloom.

"What is this?" he asked kindly.

Nan dragged herself up painfully, as though her limbs had been made of lead.

"Have I--have I--killed her?" she managed to gasp.

The doctor bent on her a pitying look.

"Killed her?" he repeated. "I do not know what you mean. Do you mean will she die? No, my child, not if we can help it--and G.o.d grant we may. But it may be long, very long, before she is well. She has been badly hurt, poor little soul!"

Then followed a term of harrowing suspense. Nights when Nan thought the sun had forgotten how to rise--so long they seemed and never ending.

The fever that followed the first season of lethargy raged fierce and hot for many a day, and the delirium that accompanied it was difficult to quell. It seemed at times as though it must burn the patient's very life away. It was during these days that Nan learned how much she had caused her friend to suffer. What, in her moments of consciousness, she had never permitted to pa.s.s her lips, now in these hours of delirium she dwelt on and repeated over and over. It was of Nan, always of Nan that she spoke.

Nan must have this; Nan must not do that. It was her duty to protect Nan and guard her. She followed the girl in perilous journeys; she tried to guide her from dangerous courses. She betrayed her anxious care for her in every word she uttered. And then sometimes she would say something that Nan could not comprehend.

"Florence's child!" she would murmur. "Florence's child!" and then she would catch herself back with a sudden look of fear as though she had betrayed a secret.

"My mother's name was Florence," Nan would say brokenly. "But I don't know what she means. She never knew my mother."

At last came a change, and then Nan was excluded from the room.

"You might excite her, and she must be carefully guarded against any chance of that," the doctor said in explanation.

But Nan was almost too happy to care. The first sound of the low, sweet voice speaking intelligently sent a thrill of pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude to her heart.

How she and Delia plotted and planned for the invalid. How Nan made the room to fairly blossom with the flowers that daily came pouring in from all manner of strange and unexpected sources.

"I never knew she had such lots of friends," the girl said one day to Delia.

The woman looked down at her with a flash of superior understanding in her eyes.

"She's a wise one," she said. "She goes her own way, and it's little she asks of any one and it's less she says. But what she does ain't little, I can tell you, Nan. I know of many a thing she's done for those who, if they haven't got money, have the grateful hearts in them to remember kindness and to love the one that shows it to them. Some day you'll know her for what she is, and then you'll never strive against her any more and you'll love her as many another has done before you."

The girl gazed straight into the woman's eyes. "I love her now, Delia," she said. "I've loved her from the first minute--only I didn't know it some of the time and the rest I was a horrid--little--beast, so there!"

Oh, the happy days that Nan spent in that quiet room above stairs. How she grew to love it! The sunshine coming through the curtains and making great patches of mellow light upon the floor seemed more bright here than anywhere else. If it rained, this place was less dreary than any other, and in sun or storm it was the only spot that Nan felt had the power to quell her wayward mood when it rose against her will and urged her back to her hoydenish exploits once more.

Miss Blake, lying back against her snowy pillows, had a look of such inexpressible sweetness to Nan that often and often the girl would fling herself beside the bed with her arms about the fragile figure, crying:

"Oh, you dear, you dear! how I love you!" and then the other, with a very happy smile would invariably answer, "And I you, Nan."

It was all understood between them now. Pardon had been humbly asked and freely granted, and there was now only the remaining regret of impending separation; the dread of the parting that was to come.

At one time they had thought that it would occur within a few weeks'

time, and the joy that Nan felt in her father's return was overshadowed by the grief she experienced in the coming loss of her friend.

But now the date of Mr. Cutler's home-coming had been postponed. He would leave Bombay as he had at first intended, but business would detain him in London, and he could not expect to reach home until that was completed--so Mr. Turner said.

Thus Nan had to reconcile herself to her disappointment and the indefiniteness of her father's return, in the thought that if her meeting with him was deferred, why, so was her parting from Miss Blake.

The weeks that pa.s.sed before the governess was fairly convalescent had brought them well into November. They had been busy, helpful weeks for Nan. In her thought for her friend's comfort she had unconsciously learned a lesson in gentleness and patience that nothing else could have taught her. Her voice grew lower, her step lighter, and the touch of her fingers more delicate. All this could never have been accomplished in such a short s.p.a.ce by ordinary means, but Love is a magical teacher and he instructed her in his art.

As the dear invalid grew stronger Nan tried to beguile the long hours by reading aloud to her from her favorite authors, sage philosophers, wise poets, and tender tale-tellers. Sometimes she did not at all comprehend the meaning of the pages she read, but Miss Blake was always ready to give her "a lift" over the hardest places, and to her surprise she grew really to love these serious books, and to get an insight into the beauty of their character.

Once in awhile she would take up the daily paper to give her friend an idea of "what was going on in the world," seriously reading discussions about this "bill" or that "question" with absolutely no conception of what the whole thing was about.

One day, it was during the last of November, she sat before the fire in the governess' room feeling especially contented and placidly happy.

Miss Blake, safely ensconced among her cushions, was cozily sipping a cup of bouillon.

The room was very still.

Suddenly Nan jumped to her feet, and, clasping her hands high over her head, said, with a luxurious sort of yawn:

"Oh--my! How I'm liking it nowadays. Things are so sort of sweet and cozy. Do you s'pose it's too good to last? Do you s'pose it has anything to do with my trying to be good and not letting my 'angry pa.s.sions rise'?"

The governess nodded her head, but made no other reply and after an instant Nan slipped to the floor again, and, sitting Turk-fashion beside her companion's knee, considered how possible it would have been for Miss Blake to have taken that occasion to lecture her on the past error of her ways. But she had learned that it was not the governess'

way to preach. That nod was as eloquent as a sermon to Nan, and she understood it perfectly.

"Shall I read you something from 'The Tribune'?" she asked, after a moment's musing. And she took up the paper and began searching for the editorial page. When she had found it she set about reading the first leader that came to hand, quite regardless of whether it would prove interesting to her auditor or not. The fact that it was unintelligible to her seemed a sort of guarantee, in her mind, that it would be interesting to Miss Blake. She read on and on until both her breath and the column itself came to a stop.

"You poor child," said the governess affectionately. "Don't read another word of that. How stupid it must be for you. Here, take this book of dear Mary Wilkins. We can both of us understand her, and she will do us both good. You need not victimize yourself a moment longer, dear Nannie."

But Nan, radiant with good humor, felt a sort of glory in just such self-victimizing. She searched through the page for further unintelligible text.

All at once she paused and read a few lines to herself. Then she burst into a laugh.

"Here's something about a man who has such a funny name. It's James Murty, alias Dan Divver, alias Shaughnessy. What a last name--Shaughnessy! And why was he called alias twice over, Miss Blake?

I didn't know one could have the same name more than once. It seems awfully expensive--I mean extravagant." Miss Blake laughed.

"You are thinking of Elias, Nan. This man's name is not Elias. Alias is p.r.o.nounced differently, and is not a name at all, but a word signifying otherwise, or otherwise called. It means that the man has gone under those different t.i.tles. And I don't think I care to hear what it has to say about the gentleman, dear. He probably isn't just the sort of person whose exploits would make fair reading."

"Is he bad?" asked Nan.

"I should gather, from his names, that his existence had been somewhat checkered," replied the governess with a twinkle in her eye.

"Is it wicked to go under other names than your own?"

Miss Blake flushed as she bent forward to place her empty cup upon the table by her side. She was far from strong yet; the slightest exertion brought the blood to her cheeks.