"Is there anything I can do for you, miss?" she said, pausing at the
door. "Is there anything nice you would like for supper?"
But Mollie did not reply. Utterly broken down by fasting, and
imprisonment, and solitude, she had flung herself passionately on
the floor, and burst out into a wild storm of hysterical weeping.
"I'm very sorry for you, Miss Dane," the nurse said for the benefit of
the eavesdropper without; "but my duty's my duty, and I must do it. I'll
fetch you up your supper presently--a cup of tea will cure the
'stericks."
She opened the door. Mrs. Oleander, at the head of the staircase, was
making a great show of having just come up.
"They'll be the death of me yet--those stairs!" she panted. "I often
tell my son I'm not fitted to mount up and down a dozen times a day, now
in my old age; but, la! what do young men care?"
"Very true, ma'am," replied the imperturbable nurse to this somewhat
obscure speech.
"And how's your patient?" continued the old lady.
"Very bad, ma'am--'stericky and wild-like. I left her crying, poor soul!"
"Crying! For what?"
"Because I wouldn't help her to escape, poor dear!" said Mrs.
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