Meantime, below, Bertie Cochrane and Maud had for some ten minutes talked unmitigated fishing; but Maud, though in general to talk fishing was to her one of the most entrancing forms of conversation, provided she talked to a real fisherman, as she was now doing, was giving lip-service only to the subject, for inwardly she regretted the finality of those few little frozen words about Thurso with which she had so successfully dismissed the subject of Christian Science and all the matter of Duncan's wife, of which she wanted to know more. For very shame or pride--the two, so verbally opposed, are often really identical--she could not go back to the subject she had so unmistakably snuffed out, while he, in his confessed and genuine dislike of preaching, was equally unlikely to approach it again.
But he had said that, though he disliked preaching, he loved practice, and she had just leaned forward over the dinner-table where they still sat, her pride in her pocket, to ask a question about this, when an interruption came. One of the nurses entered.
"I beg your pardon, my lady," she said; "I thought Lord Thurso was here."
"He will be back soon," said Maud. "Can I do anything?"
"I think Dr. Symes ought to be sent for at once, my lady," she said. "Sandie Mackenzie had very high fever an hour ago, but I didn't like his looks, and I have just taken his temperature again. It is below normal, and that is the worst that can happen, suddenly like this. Dr. Symes told me to send for him if there was a change for the worse, and I thought I had better come and tell his lordship."
"You did quite right to come and tell us, nurse," she said. "I will have him sent for at once. Is it very serious?"
"Yes, my lady; it means perforation," she said. "I don't know that it is any good to send for the doctor, but one must do what one can."
"Thank you," she said; "I will see to it."
The nurse left the room, going back to her patients; but Maud stood there for a moment without moving, for all she had mused about by the river yesterday came back to her mind in spate, vividly, instantaneously. Only yesterday she had heard Mr. Cochrane tell Duncan that his wife was better, and though that morning she had been ill almost beyond hope of recovery, yet all that day, and all to-day, she had been mending swiftly and steadily. Thurso was upstairs, too; the opportunity she had desired was completely given her.