The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of ColoradoBrady, Cyrus Townsend
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The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado
Brady, Cyrus Townsend
Colorado -- Fiction; Love stories; Western stories
"Now," he said, "you must put on this gown and get into bed. By the time
you are ready for it I will have some broth for you and then we will
bandage that foot. I shall not come in here for some time, you will be
quite alone and safe."
He turned and left the room, shutting the door after him as he went out.
For a second time that day Enid Maitland undressed herself and this time
nervously and in great haste. She was almost too excited and
apprehensive to recall the painful circumstances attendant upon her
first disrobing. She said she trusted the man absolutely, yet she would
not have been human if she had not looked most anxiously toward that
closed door. He made plenty of noise in the other room, bustling about
as if to reassure her.
She could not rest the weight of her body on her left foot and getting
rid of her wet clothes was a somewhat slow process in spite of her
hurry, made more so by her extreme nervousness. The gown he gave her was
far too big for her, but soft and warm and exquisitely clean. It draped
her slight figure completely. Leaving her sodden garments where they had
fallen, for she was not equal to anything else, she wrapped herself in
the folds of the big gown and managed to get into bed. For all its rude
appearance it was a very comfortable sleeping place, there were springs
and a good mattress. The unbleached sheets were clean; although they had
been rough dried, there was a delicious sense of comfort and rest in her
position. She had scarcely composed herself when he knocked loudly upon
her door.
"May I come in?" he asked.
When she bade him enter she saw he had in his hand a saucepan full of
some steaming broth. She wondered how he had made it in such a hurry,
but after he poured it into a granite ware cup and offered it to her,
she took it without question. It was thick, warming and nourishing. He
stood by her and insisted that she take more and more. Finally she
rebelled.
"Well, perhaps that will do for to-night," he said, "now let's have a
look at your foot."
She observed that he had laid on the table a long roll of white cloth;
she could not know that he had torn up one of his sheets to make
bandages, but so it was. He took the little foot tenderly in his hands.
"I am going to hurt you," he said, "I am going to find out if there is
anything more than a bruise, any bones broken."
There was no denying that he did pain her exquisitely.
"I can't help it," he said as she cried aloud. "I have got to see what's
the matter, I am almost through now."
"Go on, I can bear it," she said faintly. "I feel so much better anyway
now that I am dry and warm."
"So far as I can determine," said the man at last, "it is only a bad
ugly bruise; the skin is torn, it has been battered, but it is neither
sprained nor broken and I don't think it is going to be very serious.
Now I am going to bathe it in the hottest water you can bear, and then I
will bandage it and let you go to sleep."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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