BOOKS.RESEAU.ORG - English-French Library

- 80 -

"Dear," she crooned in the patient's ear, when he seemed a little
easier, "Mr Bentley will be here presently."

Mr Thornycroft's brows seemed to gather a momentary frown over his
closed eyes.

"I'd rather not, Deb--"

"Oh, not for THAT! But--the wind will change soon, and then you will
feel better; and then--you said it would help you to get well--I will
--if you like--"

He opened his eyes and gazed at her. It took him a few seconds to
understand.

"Ah--darling!" he breathed, between his pants, and with an effort drew
her hand to his lips. Then--they were his last words, whispered very
low--"Never mind now, Debbie--so long as you are here."

He seemed to drowse into a kind of half-sleep, in spite of his too
obvious and audible suffering. She sat beside him, sponging and fanning
him, listening to his shallow, jerky, wheezy respiration, watching for
the subtle something in the stifling room that should announce a change
of wind, thinking of Mr Bentley's coming, and many other things. The
weary nurse came back from her brief rest and cup of tea, and sat down
at the foot of the bed. She studied the patient's face intently for
some time, and felt his feet; then she took the fan from Deborah's
hand.

"You go and lie down, Miss Pennycuick. Mrs Dobson will come and sit
with me for a while."

"No, no," said Deb. "He wants me to be here. I cannot leave him."

After a few more minutes of silence, the nurse said again: "You had
better go, Miss Pennycuick." When Deb repeated her refusal, the nurse
went out to fetch the housekeeper to persuade her.

A minute afterwards, Deb lifted her head with a jerk, and sniffed
eagerly. At the same instant she heard a distant door bang.

"Thank God!" she ejaculated, and flew to the windows that all day had
had to be shut tight against the furnace blast outside, and flung them
wide, one after the other. The trees in the old garden were bending and
rustling; the sweet, cool air came pouring in.

"The wind has changed," she whispered, almost hysterically, to the
nurse and the housekeeper, as they stealthily crept in. "And"--as they
all gathered round the bed--"he is better already. His breathing is
easier."

The nurse bent over the long figure on the bed. "He is not breathing at
all," said she.




CHAPTER XX.



Jim Urquhart had been fighting bush fires for several days when the
wind changed and carried them back over the burnt ground that
extinguished them. When he rode home, dead beat, from helping a
neighbour who had helped him, it was to meet the news that Mr
Thornycroft was dead, and Mrs Urquhart gone to Redford to support
Deborah Pennycuick.

Mr Thornycroft had been ailing with his asthma so long, and making so
little fuss about it, that his friends had come to regard him as
practically ailing nothing. The death that had slowly stalked him for
years came upon them with the shock of the unexpected; so the
newspapers said. Jim's heart smote him for that he had been so taken up
with the fire epidemic as to have neglected for over a week to inquire
after the old man; it smote him more when he heard that Deb had been at
Redford through the ordeal, without "anyone" near her. He had known too
well--had made it his business to know--that she had had a struggling
life, heart-breaking to think of, for a long time, but under various
pretexts she had kept "everybody" at arm's-length and further, refusing
aid or pity; now there had come a chance to do something for her, and
he had been out of the way. And duty still detained him, to
arrange about destroyed fences and foodless stock--duty that had to be
considered first, even before her. When at last he was free to put
himself at her disposal, a dozen men had jumped his claim.

- 80 -