"If I get one!" said Ellen. "And he was splendid!"
They must live in a very grand house--perhaps she and her father might some day visit them. She realized that she didn't even know their name--how strange the whole incident was!
At the end of half an hour curiosity sent her back to the house. Her father had now had time to read all he wanted, she was sure. She remembered that to-morrow a dressmaker was coming to get her ready for school and she sang for joy as she walked.
But in the half-hour that she spent in the woodland, life had taken a long stride. Levis sat with his treatise open at "Dementia," his eyes still bent upon the page. He had not moved since she went away.
"I've been taken suddenly with a bad stitch in my side, Ellen, and I don't wish to move until I've had medicine. You'll find it in the right-hand cupboard in a blue bottle. Bring me a pellet."
Ellen obeyed quickly, growing pale. Levis broke the pellet in his hand and held it close to his nostril, then he straightened his shoulders. It was exactly like a tiger that the thing leaped upon one!
"I'm going over to the couch. Don't be frightened if I go slowly. Lend me your shoulder."
Ellen flew. It seemed when she returned that her father's face was less terribly gray and drawn.
"You'll make a capital doctor. Bring paper from your desk and sit here, beside me. You must be brave and steady."
"I've known for some time that my heart was a bit out of order. I'm likely to have another attack, but probably not before the doctor gets here. I want you to write something down."
Ellen looked steadily at Levis. If she held his eyes with hers, they could not become blank, unseeing, as they were a moment ago! There was in his face now a dreadful eagerness. In spite of the last hour he turned in desperate need to the memory of Stephen's old affection. Stephen had forgotten for a while, but he meant to remember and he would help him now. He felt the same fearful despair which he had felt as a boy when he needed food and did not know where to get it. He had heard the Creator called upon at too many death-beds to ignore entirely that refuge, but he was not one to turn even in such a moment to a help which he had denied. The "sum and term" of education had not been his, the loss by death of one whom he had deeply loved. If his wife had died in their earliest married life, or if Ellen had died, his spiritual history might have been different.