"I am very sorry, Neil Elthorne, for some things--very glad for others. The first is for you--the latter for myself. Good-bye. Tell him to go fast." The horses sprang off, and Neil stood thinking in the carriage drive. "A lady in the case," said Sir Denton. "Well! it is human nature, and I am not sorry--for both their sakes. He loves her, and some day he will come and tell me." At that moment Neil turned to re-enter the house, and his eyes lighted upon Nurse Elisia at the first-floor window watching the departing carriage. Their eyes met, and she drew back. Neil sighed, and then felt a spasm of pain shoot through him, for he saw that his brother was close at hand, and that he must have seen the direction of his eyes, for there was a frown upon his brow which was there still as he said roughly: "The old man's gone, then. I suppose he'll charge a pretty penny for coming down all this way?" Neil looked at him in surprise for the moment, but directly after he felt that his brother had merely spoken to conceal his thoughts, and he was thinking this as he replied: "Charge? No. I shall give him a check for the railway fare. He would look upon it as an insult if I offered him a fee." CHAPTER SIXTEEN. HOW ELISIA BECAME A NURSE. The bedroom was bright with flowers and the many touches given by a thoughtful woman's hand, to which was due the sweet fragrance in the air. "But you are better to-day, sir?" "No, nurse, no. Perhaps better in body, but not in spirit. You cannot understand it. I seem to be a prisoner chained down. My body is here, and my mind is everywhere about the place with my old projects." "Shall I read to you, sir?" "Read? Yes; I like to hear you read. You are a strange nurse, to be able to read with so much feeling. Get a book. Something good." "What would you like to-day?" "Anything. Who's that? Go and see. So tiresome, disturbing me like this." Nurse Elisia went to answer the light tap at the door, and as she opened it Aunt Anne appeared, and was sweeping by her, when her brother cried, "Stop!" "But I have some business to transact with you, Ralph," said the lady pleadingly. "I cannot help it. Go away now. I cannot be disturbed." "Oh, very well, Ralph. I will come up again," said Aunt Anne in an ill-used tone. "Wait till I send for you," said her brother sourly. "It's all that woman's doing," said Aunt Anne to herself, as she swept down the corridor. "Oh, if I could find some means of sending her away." "It seems as if it were my fate to make enemies here," said Nurse Elisia to herself, as she stood waiting with a book in her hand. "It is time I left, and yet life seems to have been growing sweeter in this quiet country home."