"Search me!" said the nurse gaily, "but I forbid you to speak a single word for half an hour. Here, drink this right off! Now, not a word! What will Dr. Martin say? Not a word! Yes, I shall see her safely off the place. Quiet now!" She kept up a continuous stream of sprightly chatter to cover her own anxiety and to turn the current of her patient's thoughts. By the time she had reached the entrance hall, however, Mandy had vanished.
"Great silly goose!" said the indignant nurse. "I'd see myself far enough before I'd give myself away like that. Little fool! He'll have a temperature sure and I will catch it. Bah! These girls!
Next time she sees him it will not be here. I hope the doctor will just give me an hour to get him quiet again."
But in this hope she was disappointed, for upon her return to her patient she found Dr. Martin in the room. His face was grave.
"What's up, nurse? What is the meaning of this rotten pulse? What has he been having to eat?"
"Well, Dr. Martin, I may as well confess my sins," replied the nurse, "for there is no use trying to deceive you anyway. Mr. Cameron has had a visitor and she has excited him."
"Ah!" said the doctor in a relieved tone. "A visitor! A lady visitor! A charming, sympathetic, interested, and interesting visitor."
"Exactly!" said the nurse with a giggle.
"It was Miss Haley, Martin," said Cameron gravely.
The doctor looked puzzled.
"The daughter of the farmer with whom I was working," explained Cameron.
"Ah, I remember her," said the doctor. "And a deuce of a time I had with her, too, getting you away from her, if I remember aright.
I trust there is nothing seriously wrong in that quarter?" said Martin with unusual gravity.
"Oh, quit it, Martin!" said Cameron impatiently. "Don't rag.
She's an awful decent sort. Her looks are not the best of her."
"Ah! I am relieved to hear that," said the doctor earnestly.
"She is very kind, indeed," said the nurse. "For these six weeks she has fed us up with eggs and cream so that both my patient and myself have fared sumptuously every day. Indeed, if it should continue much longer I shall have to ask an additional allowance for a new uniform. I have promised that Mr. Cameron shall visit the farm within two weeks if he behaves well."
"Exactly!" replied the doctor. "In two weeks if he is good. The only question that troubles me is--is it quite safe? You see in his present weak condition his susceptibility is decidedly emphasised, his resisting power is low, and who knows what might happen, especially if she should insist? I shall not soon forget the look in her eye when she dared me to lay a finger upon his person."
"Oh, cut it out, Martin!" said Cameron. "You make me weary." He lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes.
The nurse threw a signal to the doctor.
"All right, old man, we must stop this chaff. Buck up and in two weeks we will let you go where you like. I have something in mind for you, but we won't speak of it to-day."
The harvest was safely stored. The yellow stubble showed the fields at rest, but the vivid green of the new fall wheat proclaimed the astounding and familiar fact that once more Nature had begun her ancient perennial miracle. For in those fields of vivid green the harvest of the coming year was already on the way. On these green fields the snowy mantle would lie soft and protecting all the long winter through and when the spring suns would shine again the fall wheat would be a month or more on the way towards maturity.
Somehow the country looked more rested, fresher, cleaner to Cameron than when he had last looked upon it in late August. The rain had washed the dust from the earth's face and from the green sward that bordered the grey ribbon of the high road that led out from the city. The pastures and the hay meadows and the turnip fields were all in their freshest green, and beyond the fields the forest stood glorious in all its autumn splendour, the ash trees bright yellow, the oaks rich brown, and the maples all the colours of the rainbow.
In the orchard--ah, the wonder and the joy of it! even the bare and bony limbs of the apple trees only helped to reveal the sumptuous wealth of their luscious fruit. For it was apple time in the land!
