“Oh!” says he, “and faith, I should be worse than cruel.  First she comes imploring me to see you, and so prettily that a man of oak could not refuse her.  And now it is you begging to see her.  Had your eyes been opened, sir, you might have had many a glimpse of Miss Dolly these three weeks past.”

“What!  She has been watching with me?” I asked, in a rapture not to be expressed.

“’Od’s, but those are secrets.  And the medical profession is close-mouthed, Mr. Carvel.  So you want to see her?  No,” cries he, “’tis not needful to swear it on the Evangels.  And I let her come in, will you give me your honour as a gentleman not to speak more than two words to her?”

“I promise anything, and you will not deny me looking at her,” said I.

He shook again, all over.  “You rascal!  You sad dog, sir!  No, sir, faith, you must shut your eyes.  Eh, madam, must he not shut his eyes?”

“They were playmates, doctor,” answers Mrs. Manners.  She was laughing a little, too.

“Well, she shall come in.  But remember that I shall have my ear to the keyhole, and you go beyond your promise, out she’s whisked.  So I caution you not to spend rashly those two words, sir.”

And he followed Mrs. Manners out of the room, frowning and shaking his fist at me in mock fierceness.  I would have died for the man.  For a space—­a prodigious long space—­I lay very still, my heart bumping like a gun-carriage broke loose, and my eyes riveted on the crack of the door.  Then I caught the sound of a light footstep, the knob turned, and joy poured into my soul with the sweep of a Fundy tide.

“Dorothy!” I cried.  “Dorothy!”

She put her finger to her lips.

“There, sir,” said she, “now you have spoken them both at once!”

She closed the door softly behind her, and stood looking down upon me with such a wondrous love-light in her eyes as no man may describe.  My fancy had not lifted me within its compass, my dreams even had not imagined it.  And the fire from which it sprang does not burn in humbler souls.  So she stood gazing, those lips which once had been the seat of pride now parted in a smile of infinite tenderness.  But her head she still held high, and her body straight.  Down the front of her dress fell a tucked apron of the whitest linen, and in her hand was a cup of steaming broth.

“You are to take this, Richard,” she commanded.  And added, with a touch of her old mischief, “Mind, sir, if I hear a sound out of you, I am to disappear like the fairy godmother.”

I knew full well she meant it, and the terror of losing her kept me silent.  She put down the cup, placed another pillow behind my head with a marvellous deftness, and then began feeding me in dainty spoonfuls something which was surely nectar.  And mine eyes, too, had their feast.  Never before had I seen my lady in this gentle guise, this task of nursing the sick, which her doing raised to a queenly art.