"Not cholera, I do hope."
"No; I believe a kind of collapse. She is at the bungalow. I told them I would send you over."
"I will go at once."
He left a few directions, and walked over to the house. It was, he found, the nurse who had been of all the most useful and the most active. She was now lying hot and feverish, her mind wandering, inclined to ramble in her talk. He laid his hand upon her temples; he felt her pulse; he looked upon her face; the odd feeling of something familiar struck him again. "I don"t think it is very much," he said. "A little fever. She may have been in the sun; she has been working too hard; her strength has given way." He still held her wrist.
"Claude," murmured the sick girl, "you are very cruel. I didn"t know--and a girl cannot always have her own way."
Then he recognised her.
"Good heavens!" he cried, "it is Florence!"
"Not always have her own way," she repeated. "If I could have had my own way, do you think I would--"
"Florence!" he said again; "and I did not even recognise her.
Strange!"
Another of the ladies, the colonel"s wife, was standing beside him.
"You know her, doctor?"
"I knew her a long time ago--some years ago--before she married."
"Married? Florence is not married. You must be thinking of some one else."
"No. This is Florence Vernon, is it not? Yes. Then she was formerly engaged to marry a certain Sir William Duport."
"Oh, I believe there was some talk about an old man who wanted to marry her. But she wouldn"t have him. It was just before her mother died. Did you know her mother?"
"I knew her mother a little when they were living at Eastbourne.
So she refused the old man, did she? and has remained unmarried.
Curious! I had almost forgotten her. The sight of her brings back the old days. Well, after she has pulled so gallantly through the cholera, we cannot have her beaten by a little fever. Refused the old man, did she?"
In the dead of night he sat watching by the bedside, the colonel"s wife with him.
"I had almost forgotten," whispered the lady, "that story of the old baronet. She told me about it once. Her mother was ill, and anxious about her daughter because she had next to nothing except an annuity. The old man offered; he was an unpleasant old man, but there was a fine house and everything. It was all arranged. The girl was quite a child, and understood nothing. She was to be sold, in fact, to this old person, who ought to have been thinking of his latter end instead of a pretty girl. Then the mother died suddenly, and the girl broke it off. She was a clever girl, and she has been teaching. For the last three years she has been in India; now she is going home under my charge. She is a brave girl, doctor, and a good girl. She has received half a dozen offers, but she has refused them all; so I think there must be somebody at home."
"Claude," murmured the girl, wandering, "I never thought you would care so much. If I had thought so, I would not have encouraged you. Indeed, indeed, I would not. I thought we were only amusing ourselves."
"Claude is a pretty name. What is your own Christian name, doctor?"
asked the colonel"s wife, curiously.
"It is--in fact--it is Claude," he replied, blushing; but there was not enough light to see his blushes.
"Dear me!" said the colonel"s wife.
A few days later the patient, able to sit for a while in the shade of the veranda, was lying in a long cane chair. Beside her sat the colonel"s wife who had nursed her through the attack. She was reading aloud to her. Suddenly she stopped. "Here comes the doctor,"
she said; "and, Florence, my dear, his name, you know, is Claude.
I think you have got something to talk about with Claude besides the symptoms." With these words she laughed, nodded her head, and ran into the salon.
The veranda, with its green blinds of cane hanging down, and its matting on the floor, and its easy-chairs and tables, made a pretty room to look at. In the twilight, the fragile figure, pale, thin, dressed in white, would have lent interest even to a stranger. To the doctor, I suppose, it was only a "case." He pushed the blinds aside and stepped in, strong, big, masterful. "You are much better,"
he said; "you will very soon be able to walk about. Only be careful for a few days. It was lucky that the attack came when it did, and not a little earlier when we were in the thick of the trouble.
Well, you won"t want me much longer, I believe."
"No, thank you," she murmured, without raising her eyes.
"I have had no opportunity," he said, standing over her, "of explaining that I really did not know who you were, Miss Vernon.
Somehow I didn"t see your face, or I was thinking of other things.
I suppose you had forgotten me. Anyhow, it was not until the other day, when I was called in, that I remembered. But I dare say you have forgotten me."
"No; I have not forgotten."
"I thought that long ago you had become Lady Duport."
"No; that did not take place."
"I hear that you have been teaching since your mother"s death. Do you like it?"
"Yes; I like it."
"Do you remember the last time we met--on the sea-sh.o.r.e? Do you remember, Florence?" His voice softened suddenly. "We had a quarrel about that old villain; do you remember?"
"I thought you had forgotten such a little thing as that long ago, and the girl you quarrelled with."
"The point is rather whether you remember. That is of much more importance."
"I remember that you swore that you would never forgive a worthless girl who had ruined your life. Did I ruin your life, Dr. Fernie?"
He laughed. He could not honestly say that she had. In fact, his life, so far as concerned his work, had gone on much about the same. But then, such a man does not allow love to interfere with his career.
"And then you went and threw over the old man. Florence, why didn"t you tell me that you were going to do that? You might have told me."
She shook her head. "Until you fell into such a rage, and called me such dreadful names, I did not understand."
"Why didn"t you tell me, Florence?" he repeated.
She shook her head again.
"You were only a little innocent, ignorant child then," he said; "of course you could not understand. I was an a.s.s and a brute and a fool not to know."
"You said you would never forgive me. You said you would never shake hands with me again."
He held out his hand. "Since," he said, "you are not going to marry the old man, and since you are not engaged to anybody else, why--then--in that case--the old state of things is still going on; and--and--Florence--but if you give me your hand, I shall keep it, mind."
"Dear me!" said the colonel"s wife, standing in the doorway. "Do quarantine doctors always kiss their patients? But you told me, doctor dear, that your Christian name was Claude; didn"t you? That explains everything."
The ship, with those of her company whom the plague had spared, presently steamed away, and, after being repaired, made her way to Portsmouth dockyard. But one of her company stayed behind, and is now queen or empress of the island of which her husband is king, captain, commandant, and governor-general, and also resident quarantine doctor.