“The Sethpoor fellow and Bess Janner were my only stay,” the young doctor was wont to say. “Only such care as his would have saved you, and you had a close race of it as it was.”
During the convalescence nurse and invalid were drawn together with a stronger tie through every hour. Wearied and weak, Langley's old interest in the lad became a warm affection. He could scarcely bear to lose sight of the awkward boyish figure, and never rested so completely as when it was by his bedside.
“Give me your hand, dear fellow,” he would say, “and let me hold it. I shall sleep better for knowing you are near me.”
He fell asleep thus one morning, and awakened suddenly to a consciousness of some new presence in the room. Seth no longer sat in the chair near his pillow, but stood a little apart; and surely he would have been no lover if the feeble blood had not leaped in his veins at the sight of the face bending over him--the innocent, fair young face which had so haunted his pained and troubled dreams. “Cathie!” he cried out aloud.
The-girl fell upon her knees and caught his extended hand with a passionate little gesture of love and pity. “I did not know,” she poured forth in hurried, broken tones. “I have been away ever since the sickness broke out at home. They sent me away, and I only heard yesterday--Father, tell him, for I cannot.”
He scarcely heard the more definite explanation, he was at once so happy and so fearful.
“Sweetheart,” he said, “I can scarcely bear to think of what may come of this; and yet how blessed it is to have you near me again! The danger for me is all over: even your dear self could not have cared for me more faithfully than I have been cared for. Raynor there has saved my life.”
But Cathie could only answer with a piteous, remorseful jealousy: “Why was it not I who saved it? why was it not I?”
And the place where Seth had stood waiting was vacant, for he had left it at the sound of Langley's first joyous cry. When he returned an hour or so later, the more restful look Langley had fancied he had seen on his face of late had faded out: the old unawakened heaviness had returned. He was nervous and ill at ease, shrinking and conscious.
“I've comn to say good-neet to yo',” he said hesitatingly to the invalid. “Th' young lady says as she an' her feyther will tak' my place a bit. I'll coom i' th' mornin'.”