“You will not tell my secret, Mr. Davis,” she said abruptly.

“No! not I!  Does the woman think I had never to keep a secret of the kind before?  I only hope he’ll lose his election, and never come near the place again.  After all,” continued he, sighing, “I suppose it is but human nature!” He began recalling the circumstances of his own early life, and dreamily picturing scenes in the grey dying embers of the fire; and he was almost startled when she stood before him, ready equipped, grave, pale, and quiet.

“Come along!” said he.  “If you’re to do any good at all, it must be in these next three days.  After that, I’ll ensure his life for this bout; and mind!  I shall send you home then; for he might know you, and I’ll have no excitement to throw him back again, and no sobbing and crying from you.  But now every moment your care is precious to him.  I shall tell my own story to the Bensons, as soon as I have installed you.”

Mr. Donne lay in the best room of the Queen’s Hotel—­no one with him but his faithful, ignorant servant, who was as much afraid of the fever as any one else could be, but who, nevertheless, would not leave his master—­his master who had saved his life as a child, and afterwards put him in the stables at Bellingham Hall, where he learnt all that he knew.  He stood in a farther corner of the room, watching his delirious master with affrighted eyes, not daring to come near him, nor yet willing to leave him.

“Oh! if that doctor would but come!  He’ll kill himself or me—­and them stupid servants won’t stir a step over the threshold; how shall I get over the night?  Blessings on him—­here’s the old doctor back again!  I hear him creaking and scolding up the stairs!”

The door opened, and Mr. Davis entered, followed by Ruth.

“Here’s the nurse, my good man—­such a nurse as there is not in the three counties.  Now, all you’ll have to do is to mind what she says.”

“Oh, sir! he’s mortal bad! won’t you stay with us through the night, sir?”

“Look here!” whispered Mr. Davis to the man, “see how she knows how to manage him!  Why, I could not do it better myself!”

She had gone up to the wild, raging figure, and with soft authority had made him lie down:  and then, placing a basin of cold water by the bedside, she had dipped in it her pretty hands, and was laying their cool dampness on his hot brow, speaking in a low soothing voice all the time, in a way that acted like a charm in hushing his mad talk.

“But I will stay,” said the doctor, after he had examined his patient; “as much on her account as his, and partly to quieten the fears of this poor, faithful fellow.”

CHAPTER XXXV

OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT