“Do I hurt you?” she asked, softly.

“Not a bit.”  He smiled, and his eyes lingered on her face till their lids dropped over them.

Chapter VII

Dr. Lash came a little earlier than he was expected.  The wound was not really a fatal one, he said, but if Miss Harriet had not been so attentive and skilful in keeping the cut closed, the man would have bled to death.

Westerfelt dropped to sleep, and when he awoke it was night.  A lamp, the light of which was softened by a pink shade, stood on a sewing-machine near the fireplace.  At first he could not recall what had happened nor where he was, and he felt very weak and sleepy.  After awhile, however, he became conscious of the fact that he was not alone.  A slight figure was moving silently about the room, now at the fireplace, again at a table where some lint, bandages, and phials had been left.  The figure approached his bed cautiously.  It was Harriet Floyd.  When she saw that he was awake, she started to move away, but he detained her.

“I’m a lot of trouble for a new boarder,” he said, smiling.  “This is my first day, and yet I’ve turned your house into a fortification and a hospital.”

“You are not a bit of trouble; the doctor said let you sleep as much as possible.”

“I don’t need sleep; I’ve been hurt worse than this before.”

She put her hand on his brow.  “It’ll make you feverish to talk, Mr. Westerfelt; go to sleep.”

“Did they jail Wambush?”

“Yes.”

“Toughest customer I ever tackled.”  He laughed, dryly.

She made no reply.  She went to the fire and began stirring the contents of a three-legged pot on the coals.  To see her better, he turned over on his side.  The bed slats creaked.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, running to him, “you’ll break the stitches, and bleed again.  Don’t move that way.”

He raised the blanket and looked down at his wound.

“I reckon they are holding all right, though I did feel a little twinge.”

“You have not had any dinner or supper,” she went on.  “Dr. Lash said if you wanted anything I might give you some gruel and milk.  I’ve made it, and it is keeping warm at the fire.  Will you take some?”

“No, I thank you; I can wait till breakfast.  Then I’ll set up at the table and eat a square meal; somehow, I’m not hungry.  Wambush objected mightily to being jailed, didn’t he?”

“You ought not to wait till breakfast,” she said, looking at the fire; “you’d better let me give you some of this gruel.”

“All right; you are the doctor.”

She dipped up some of the gruel in a bowl, and, adding some milk to it, came back to him.  But she was confronted by a difficulty.  He could not eat gruel and milk from a spoon while lying on his back.  He saw this, and put his hands on either side of him and started to sit up.