"We needn't magnify the merit, Mrs. William," he rejoined slightingly. "The people down stairs will be paid in good time Idare say, for any little extra service they may have rendered me;and perhaps they anticipate no less. I am much obliged to you, too."Her fingers stopped, and she looked at him.
"I can't be made to feel the more obliged by your exaggerating the case," he said. "I am sensible that you have been interested in me, and I say I am much obliged to you. What more would you have?"Her work fell on her lap, as she still looked at him walking to and fro with an intolerant air, and stopping now and then.
"I say again, I am much obliged to you. Why weaken my sense of what is your due in obligation, by preferring enormous claims upon me? Trouble, sorrow, affliction, adversity! One might suppose Ihad been dying a score of deaths here!"
"Do you believe, Mr. Edmund," she asked, rising and going nearer to him, "that I spoke of the poor people of the house, with any reference to myself? To me?" laying her hand upon her bosom with a simple and innocent smile of astonishment.
"Oh! I think nothing about it, my good creature," he returned. "Ihave had an indisposition, which your solicitude - observe! I say solicitude - makes a great deal more of, than it merits; and it's over, and we can't perpetuate it."He coldly took a book, and sat down at the table. She watched him for a little while, until her smile was quite gone, and then, returning to where her basket was, said gently:
"Mr. Edmund, would you rather be alone?"
"There is no reason why I should detain you here," he replied.
"Except - " said Milly, hesitating, and showing her work.
"Oh! the curtain," he answered, with a supercilious laugh. "That's not worth staying for."She made up the little packet again, and put it in her basket. Then, standing before him with such an air of patient entreaty that he could not choose but look at her, she said:
"If you should want me, I will come back willingly. When you did want me, I was quite happy to come; there was no merit in it. Ithink you must be afraid, that, now you are getting well, I may be troublesome to you; but I should not have been, indeed. I should have come no longer than your weakness and confinement lasted. You owe me nothing; but it is right that you should deal as justly by me as if I was a lady - even the very lady that you love; and if you suspect me of meanly making much of the little I have tried to do to comfort your sick room, you do yourself more wrong than ever you can do me. That is why I am sorry. That is why I am very sorry."If she had been as passionate as she was quiet, as indignant as she was calm, as angry in her look as she was gentle, as loud of tone as she was low and clear, she might have left no sense of her departure in the room, compared with that which fell upon the lonely student when she went away. He was gazing drearily upon the place where she had been, when Redlaw came out of his concealment, and came to the door.
"When sickness lays its hand on you again," he said, looking fiercely back at him, " - may it be soon! - Die here! Rot here!""What have you done?" returned the other, catching at his cloak.