It was the perfection of collected independence. The strength
of her nature had come to surface because the obscure depths had been
stirred.
"We two can talk of it now," she observed, after a silence and stopping
short before me. "Have you been to inquire at the hospital lately?"
"Yes, I have." And as she looked at me fixedly, "He will live, the
doctors say. But I thought that Tekla...."
"Tekla has not been near me for several days," explained Miss Haldin
quickly. "As I never offered to go to the hospital with her, she thinks
that I have no heart. She is disillusioned about me."
And Miss Haldin smiled faintly.
"Yes. She sits with him as long and as often as they will let her," I
said. "She says she must never abandon him--never as long as she lives.
He'll need somebody--a hopeless cripple, and stone deaf with that."
"Stone deaf? I didn't know," murmured Natalia Haldin.
"He is. It seems strange. I am told there were no apparent injuries to
the head. They say, too, that it is not very likely that he will live so
very long for Tekla to take care of him."
Miss Haldin shook her head.
"While there are travellers ready to fall by the way our Tekla shall
never be idle. She is a good Samaritan by an irresistible vocation. The
revolutionists didn't understand her.
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