George Manville Fenn
The Tiger Lily
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066140434
Table of Contents
Chapter Two.
The Certain Person.
“Hah!”
A long-drawn sigh of content, which made Cornelia Thorpe emerge from her chair behind the bed-curtains, and bend over to lay her soft white hand upon the patient’s forehead, but only for it to be taken and held to his lips.
“Well, angel?” he said quietly.
“Your head is quite cool; there is no fever. Have you had a good night’s rest?”
“Good, my child? It has been heavenly. I seemed to sink at once into a delicious dreamless sleep, such as I have not known for a year, and I feel as if I had not stirred all night.”
“You have not.”
“Then you have watched by me?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Hah!” There was a pause. Then: “You must have given me a strong dose?”
“No,” said Cornel, smiling. “Your sleep was quite natural. Why should it not be? Michael says the cause of all your suffering is completely removed, and that he has been successful beyond his hopes.”
The old man lay holding his nurse’s hand, and gazing at her fair, innocent face intently for some minutes before breaking the silence again.
“When was it?” he said at last.
“A week to-day, and in another month you may be up again.”
“Hah! And they say there are no miracles now, and no angels upon earth,” said the patient, half to himself. Then more loudly, “Cornel, my child, I think I must turn over a new leaf.”
“Don’t,” she said, smiling. “I like the old page. You have always been my fathers dear friend—always good and kind.”
“I? Bah! A regular money-scraping, harsh tyrant. A regular miser.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Masters.”
“Then I’ll prove it. I won’t pay Michael his fees, nor you your wages for nursing me—not till I’m dead. Well, have I said something funny? Why do you laugh?”
“I smiled because I felt pleased.”
“Because I’m better?”
“Yes; and because you are not going to insult Michael, nor your nurse, by offering us—”
“Dollars? Humph! There, let’s talk about something else. Does Michael still hold to that insane notion of going to Europe?”
“Oh yes; we should have been there now, if it had not been for your illness.”
“Then he gave it up for a time, because I wanted him to attend me?”
Cornel bowed her head.
“Humph! Sort of madness to want to go at all. Isn’t America big enough for him?”
“Of course,” said Cornel, laughing gently; and now the air of the nurse appeared to have dropped away, to give place to the bright happy look of a girl of twenty. “Surely it is not madness to want to increase his knowledge by a little study at the English and French hospitals. Besides, it was our father’s wish.”
“Yes;