.
at the girl’s confusion. “There, if I don’t believe you have forgot all about it! What can you be thinking of, I wonder!” with a laugh at Gregory. “Her ladyship says if Nurse Marston’s business is very important she is to come to her in the small library when all the guests are gone. She does not think they will be very late to-night.”
“The small library? I haven’t seen that, I think,” Gregory remarked, moving a little nearer the girl but keeping his eyes on the housekeeper.
“Well, I dare say you haven’t,” she remarked a trifle condescendingly. “It hasn’t been, so to speak, in general use, though it has been kept aired, since Sir Noel died. He always sat there in the morning when he was indoors. It is that small room that opens into the conservatory to the right of the drawing-room.”
“Oh, ah, I think I have seen it,” Jim said absently, edging nearer the door through which Minnie had already vanished. “I’ll be pleased to do what I can for you at any time, Mrs. Parkyns; but if there is nothing more tonight—”
“I should be sorry to keep you if there was,” the housekeeper said with a significant laugh. “You are to let us have the cattleya for the table to-morrow night, Sir Arthur said.”
“Very good, m’m,” and Jim made his escape without, more ado.
In the wide stone-flagged passage outside he caught a glimpse of Minnie’s black skirt as she hurried round the corner, and gave chase at once.
“Why, Minnie,” he said reproachfully as he came up with her, “you are never going off like this without a word? I want to talk to you about that Cottage; but I haven’t finished with Mrs. Parkyns yet. However, you come round while they are at dinner and I will tell you all about it.”
Minnie looked frightened.
“I don’t know as I dare. It would be as much as my place is worth if her ladyship or Mrs. Parkyns got to hear of it.”
“You won’t need to keep the place much longer if we settle on the cottage,” Jim reminded her. “You must come, Minnie; there’s the dearest little sitting-room and the regular picture of a kitchen.”
Minnie hesitated, but the wish to hear more of her future home overcame her scruples.
“Well, just this once,” she conceded. “You won’t keep me long, Jim?”
A light gleamed in the man’s eyes.
“Not a minute longer than you want to stop, Minnie. Now I must go back to Mrs. Parkyns.”
Minnie’s face was still flushed as she walked slowly up the backstairs; half-way down the corridor leading to the sick-room one of the other maids ran after her.
“This parcel has just come up from Lockford for Nurse Marston; will you give it to her, Minnie?”
Minnie took it and tapped at the pink-room door.
“Her ladyship will see you in the small library when the guests have gone, nurse,” she announced. “This has come for you.”
Nurse Marston stepped into the passage, pulling the door to behind her.
“Ah, my things for the night!” she said as she took the parcel from the girl’s hands. “Mother said she would send them; but I don’t think I shall go to bed, though they have given me this room,” nodding to the door of that next the one occupied by her patient. “However, I can’t decide that till I have seen her ladyship. But I will put my things out”—unfastening the parcel—“and here’s my knitting. If I do sit up I like a bit of work in my hand, and I am anxious to get mother’s stockings done before winter. I knit them all myself, Minnie.”
“Do you really?” The girl looked much impressed. “You will ring if you want anything, nurse,” she went on. “Wright will bring your supper up; and I will let you know when the folk are going.”
“Thank you, Minnie!” the nurse responded as she laid her modest belongings in the big wardrobe and the drawers that looked so ludicrously out of proportion with their contents.
A few minutes later she was back with her patient, who was apparently asleep, and stood regarding her with a puzzled expression.
“I cannot be mistaken,” she murmured, “and yet—”
She shrugged her shoulders as she crossed the room and, taking her knitting in her hand, sat down before the fire, watching the flames with absent eyes, while her fingers clicked the steel pins with mechanical regularity.
She had scarcely moved, save to give her patient the required nourishment, when several hours later Mavis tapped at the door.
“You wanted to see mother, nurse,” she began. “The people are going now, so if you—”
The nurse came softly across the room.
“I would go at once, Miss Mavis, but Minnie promised to come and sit with the young lady while I went. I hardly care to leave her alone.”
Mavis came into the room.
“Oh, I will stay, nurse! I dare say Minnie is busy with the cloaks.”
She drew nearer the bed and looked at the fair pale face, at the cloud of golden hair spreading over the pillows.
“How lovely she is,” she said with involuntary admiration.
“She is pretty,” Nurse Marston admitted, with a kind of grudging reservation.
“Is she unconscious?” Mavis went on. “Does she hear anything we say?”
“It is impossible to tell how much she understands,” the nurse said repressively. “She lies for the most part in this kind of stupor, and I must ask you not to talk before her, Miss Mavis. It might do harm.”
“Oh, I am so sorry! “ Mavis exclaimed penitently. “It was very thoughtless of me. You will be afraid now to trust me with her.”
“Well, I am rather anxious to speak to her ladyship, so if you really don’t mind staying a few minutes I shall be very grateful to you, Miss Mavis.”
“Oh, that will be all right!” Mavis tiptoed across the soft carpet to the nurse’s big easy-chair. “Don’t hurry yourself at all on my account, nurse,” she added pleasantly. “Just tell me, is there anything I ought to give her?”
Nurse Marston considered a little.
“There’s her draught, but that is not for half an hour, and I shall be back in plenty of time for that. No, there is nothing now, thank you, Miss Mavis—only just to give an eye to her every now and then.”
“I see.” And Mavis settled herself comfortably in her chair. “Tell mother not to stay up gossiping too long,” she said lightly as, with a half-reluctant backward glance, the nurse left the room.
Mavis’s glance lingered a while on the straight white figure lying so still and motionless in the big bed, then her thoughts wandered to Garth, and the little smile which certain memories of the evening evoked was still lingering round her lips when a weak voice spoke from the bed.
“Who is there? Who are you?”
Mavis sprang to her feet and hurried to the bedside, starting as she met the gaze of a brilliant pair of blue eyes.
“Who are you?” the soft voice went on insistently.
“I am Mavis Hargreave. You saw me last night. Don’t you remember now?”
The girl pressed her hand over her forehead. “I —I think I have seen you somewhere,” she said perplexedly. “But I don’t remember. Where am I?”
Moved by a sudden impulse of pity, Mavis took one of the slim trembling hands in hers and held it tenderly.
“You are at Hargreave Manor—we found you in the park last night.”
The girl tossed restlessly about.