"Oh, that"s the nurse. You see--he was so ill--"
Doreen looked at him keenly, but did not wait for anymore explanations.
"Why doesn"t she come in, then? Of course she must come in."
And she ran out to the door of the carriage, with Max not far behind.
"Aren"t you coming in? They"ve taken your patient upstairs," she said gently, as poor Carrie, who looked more dead than alive, sat up in the carriage and tried to put her hat and her cape straight.
"Oh, I shan"t be wanted now, shall I?" asked Carrie, with a timid voice and manner which contrasted strongly with her calm, easy a.s.surance while she was at work.
Max threw a glance of grat.i.tude at his sister, as he quickly opened the door of the carriage and more than half dragged Carrie out.
As the girl stepped, blinking, into the broad sunlight, Doreen stared at her intently, and then glanced inquiringly at her brother, who, however, did not see her questioning look. He led Carrie into the house and straight up the stairs toward the room where they had put Dudley.
"Don"t make me stay," pleaded she, in a low voice. "They will know I"m not a regular nurse, and--and I shall be uncomfortable, miserable. You can do without me now."
She was trying to shrink away. Max stopped in the middle of the stairs, and answered her gravely, earnestly:
"I only ask you to stay until we can get a regular nurse down. He is too ill to do without a trained attendant; you know that. Will you promise to wait while we send for one?"
Carrie could scarcely refuse.
"Yes, I will stay till then, if I am really wanted," a.s.sented she.
"Ask my sister. Here she comes," said Max.
Doreen was on the stairs behind them.
"Is it really necessary--do you want me to stay while a nurse is sent for?" asked Carrie, diffidently.
Doreen looked up straight in her face.
"What more natural than that you should stay with him?" returned she, promptly; "since you are his sister."
Max and Carrie both started. The likeness between Dudley and Carrie, which Max had taken time to discover, had struck Doreen at once. Carrie would have denied the allegation, but Max caught her arm and stopped her.
"Quite true," said he quietly. "This is the way, Miss Horne, to your brother"s room."
Doreen was quick enough to see that there was some little mystery about the relationship which she had divined, and she went rapidly past her brother without asking any questions.
It was about two hours after Dudley"s arrival that Carrie, now installed in the sick-room, came to the door and asked for Max. Her face was rigid with a great terror. She seemed at first unable to utter the words which were on her tongue. At last she said, in a voice which sounded hard and unlike her own:
"Don"t send for a nurse. I must stay with him. He is delirious, and I have just learned--from him--from his ravings, a secret--a terrible secret--one that must not be known!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BLUE-EYED NURSE.
It was at the door of Dudley"s sick-room that Carrie informed Max that she had learned a secret from the lips of the sick man, and Max, by a natural impulse of curiosity, nay, more, a deep interest, pushed the door gently open.
Dudley"s voice could be heard muttering below his breath words which Max could not catch.
But Carrie pulled the young man sharply back by the arm into the corridor, and shut the door behind her. Her face was full of determination.
"No," said she, "not even you."
Max drew himself up, offended.
"I should think you might trust me," he said, stiffly. "The doctor will have to hear when he comes. And the secret, whatever it is, will be safer with me than with old Haselden."
Carrie smiled a little, and shook her head.
"The doctor," said she, "wouldn"t be able to make head or tail of what he says. Now, you would."
"And if I did, what of that? Don"t I know everything, or almost everything, already? Didn"t I bring him down here, to my father"s house, after I knew that there was a warrant out against him? What better proof do you want that the secret would be safe with me?"
But Carrie would not give way. Without entering into an argument, she stood before him with a set look of obstinacy in her mouth and eyes, slowly shaking her head once or twice as he went on with his persuasions.
"Do you think I should make a wrong use of the secret?" asked Max, impatiently.
"Oh, no."
"Do you think it would turn me against him?"
But at this question she hesitated.
"I don"t know," said she, at last.
"It is something that has given you pain?" Max went on, noting the traces of tears on her face and the misery in her eyes.
"Yes, oh, yes."
The answer was given in a very low voice, with such a heart-felt sob that Max was touched to the quick. He came quite close to her, and, bending down, so that his mustache almost brushed the soft fair hair on her forehead, he whispered:
"I"m so sorry. Poor Carrie! I won"t worry you, then; I won"t ask any more questions, if only--if only you"ll let me tell you how awfully sorry I am."
He ventured to put his hand upon her shoulder, as he bent down to look into her face.
And, as luck would have it, Mr. Wedmore at that very moment bounced out of one of the rooms which opened on the corridor, and caught sight of this pretty little picture before it broke up.
Of course, Max withdrew his hand and lifted up his head so swiftly that he flattered himself he had been too quick for his father, who walked along the corridor toward the drawing-room as if he had seen nothing.
But Max was mistaken. Mr. Wedmore, already greatly irritated by his son"s repeated failures to settle down, found in this little incident a pretext for a fresh outburst of wrath.