At the suggestion of going out the nurse gave a shriek and thrust her tray into the servant’s hands who was waiting. “He will have to kill me first,” she said, rushing away. And immediately upon this scene came Betty, fresh and shining in her white frock, with a smile like a little sunbeam, who announced at once that Miss Lance was coming. “How is Charlie?” said Betty. “Oh, Mrs. Leigh, how good you have been! Papa is coming himself to thank you. What a trouble it must have been to have him ill here all the time. Mrs. Lyon, whom I am staying with, thinks it so wonderful of you--so kind, so kind! And Bee, _she_ is coming, though it is rather a hard thing for her to do. She says you will not like to see her, Mrs. Leigh, and that it will be an intrusion upon you; but I said when you had been so good to poor Charlie all along, you would not be angry that she should come who is such a friend.” “Any friend, of course, of Colonel Kingsward’s----” Mrs. Leigh said stiffly, while little Betty stared. She thought they all looked very strange; the old lady so stiff, and Bee turning red and turning white, and a general air as if something had gone wrong. “Is Charlie worse?” she said, with an anxious look. And then Bee was suddenly called upstairs. “Can’t manage him any longer,” the nurse said on the landing. “I wash my hands of it. Your fault if he has a relapse.” “Who is that?” said Charlie, from within, “Who is it? I will see her! Nobody shall interfere, no one--doctor, or nurse, or--the devil himself. Bee!” “It is only Betty,” said Bee, upon which Charlie ceased his raging and flung himself again on his sofa. “You want to torment me; you want to wear me out; you want to kill me,” he said, with tears of keen disappointment in his eyes. “Charlie,” said Bee, “she is coming. Betty is here to say so; she is coming in about an hour or so. If you will eat your dinner and lie quite quiet and compose yourself you will be allowed to see her, and nurse will not object.” “Oh, Miss Kingsward, don’t answer for me. It is as much as his life is worth.” “But not unless you eat your dinner and keep perfectly quiet.” “Give us that old dinner,” said Charlie, with a loud, unsteady laugh, and the tray was brought back and he performed his duty upon the half-cold dishes with an expedition and exuberance that gave nurse new apprehensions. “He’ll have indigestion,” she said, “if he gobbles like that,” speaking once more inaudibly over Charlie’s shoulder. But afterwards all was quiet till the fated moment came.