CHAPTER XI

A Flash of Light

BERT hurried back to the Princess with his hands full of small packages. He proceeded to set out the nicest supper his limited means had enabled him to provide. Prin began to eat eagerly, but ere she had swallowed many mouthfuls, her appetite suddenly failed. She pushed her plate aside, and said she could eat no more.

"Why, Prin, you must be ill," Bert said, unable to understand how one who had eaten nothing all day could be so easily satisfied.

"No, not ill, only dead tired," she said faintly. "I think I'll go to bed."

"Won't you tell me first how it is you are in London?" Bert asked timidly. "Have you left Lady Millicent?"

A shiver ran through Prin as he spoke.

"Yes," she said faintly, "I've left her. They were unkind to me, and I ran away."

"Ran away!" repeated Bert, in amazement. "From Park Lane?"

"No, from the cottage—from Mrs. Hamblyn's, down in Hampshire."

"All that way!" exclaimed Bert. "What did they do to you to make you run off?"

The colour rose in Prin's face, and then died away as quickly. She answered, with considerable hesitation,—

"They said I was a thief—they said I had taken something of Lady Millicent's. They were coming to search my box, and I ran away."

"But why did you, Prin?" asked Bert, looking perplexed and troubled. "You should have stayed and let them search your box, then they would have known that you had not stolen it. But now they will most likely think that you've got whatever it was, and taken it away with you. It wasn't like you, Prin, to be so foolish."

"I suppose I did not think of that," she said, looking down.

"You didn't walk from Hampshire, surely?" he said, as his eyes fell on her boots.

She nodded.

"Most of the way," she said. "I didn't dare to take a train on their line, for fear they should telegraph and have me stopped at the station. I lay under a hedge last night, and as soon as it was light, I got up and walked on. Then a carrier's cart overtook me, and I got a lift. It was going to Weybridge, and there I took the train for London."

"You must be dreadfully tired," said Bert, looking compassionately at her; "you'd better get to bed at once."

"Oh," she cried, with a sudden wail of distress, "I wish I had not done it!" Then looking round her fearfully, she added, "You don't think they'll find me here, do you, Bert? Perhaps we had better go somewhere else."

"Why should you be afraid of their finding you, if you haven't got it?" asked Bert. "Of course you wouldn't be likely to steal. 'We're poor, but we're honest!' as father used to say. What was it they thought you had taken?"

"Oh, do be quiet! You'll drive me mad with your questions!" cried Prin angrily. "I am not going to say another word, so there."

She began to undress. When she took off her stockings, it appeared that her feet were sore and blistered, and Bert fetched some water and bathed them for her. Then she lay down, and almost immediately fell into an uneasy sleep. Bert sat and watched her, his mind full of perplexity and trouble. Presently Prin began to move from side to side in her sleep, and to talk rapidly.

"They're coming! They're coming!" she would cry. "Don't let them find me, Bert! Can't you hide me somewhere? Tell them I haven't got it. Oh, how it sparkles! Can they see it in the dark? It's Lady Millicent's; but if she's going to die, she won't want it; she doesn't care for it, anyhow. Oh, Bert, Bert, help me—don't leave me! I'm so frightened."

"I'm here, Prin. You need not be afraid. I won't leave you," Bert made reply.

His high, clear tones seemed to reach her troubled brain even in her sleep, with power to calm. She grew quieter. Bert meant to watch beside her all night, but weariness overpowered him. He stretched himself at the foot of the bed, intending to rest but a few minutes, and fell into the sound slumber of a boy accustomed to sleep under the most unfavourable circumstances.

When he woke it was daylight, and the area-room, gloomy at the best of times, was as bright as it ever could be. Prin was awake, but complained of feeling very ill. She had terrible pain in her head and limbs. Bert ran out and bought some tea—a luxury he rarely indulged in himself—and made her a cup. She drank it eagerly, but it did not prove the panacea he had hoped. He would fain have brought Mrs. Brown to see her, but Prin passionately bid him bar the door against every one. She would soon be all right, if only she were left alone, she said. But though Bert let her lie all day undisturbed, only giving her something to drink when she asked him, she did not get better. At night she was in a high fever, and by the next morning she was delirious.

Then Bert had to seek the help of Mrs. Brown. She came and looked at Prin from the doorway, but would not venture nearer, being convinced that her malady must be something "catching."

She sent for the parish doctor, but he did not come till the afternoon, and meanwhile Bert suffered an agony of suspense. Again the terrible question, "What if Prin should die?" pierced his heart.

At last the doctor's step was heard hurriedly descending to the area.

"What, is it you?" said Mr. Hurst, as he recognised the boy. "And is the Princess ill again? Why, I thought she had gone away?"

"So she did," said Bert; "but she came back the day before yesterday."

"Ah! Came back ill?"

Bert nodded.

"Did they send her back because she was ill?"

"Oh no; it wasn't that," said Bert; "she ran away because they were unkind to her."

"Ran away! Unkind to her!" repeated the doctor, in amazement.

"Yes; they said she had stolen something. Prin could not stand that. She always was a spirit. So she ran away."

"Phew!" said the doctor expressively. "A very foolish spirit."

Then he gave his attention to his patient. He went thoroughly into her case, and seemed anxious to do his best for her. There was no infection, he said. It was a fever produced by exposure, over-fatigue, and distress of mind. Perhaps influenza had something to do with it; but, whatever it was, she could not be moved now, but must be nursed where she lay.

"Who will nurse her?" asked the doctor. "Where's that old woman who used to take care of you?"

"Mrs. Kay?" said Bert. "She's gone to Scotland; but I can nurse Prin."

"You!" Mr. Hurst shrugged his shoulders expressively. "It's a poor look-out, if she has only you to nurse her. I'll see if I can get the district nurse to come; but her hands are pretty full just now. Why didn't she stay where she was well off?"

He looked at Prin. She was beginning to talk excitedly again.

"Bert, Bert," she cried; "don't let them have it! It's mine, I tell you. See how it sparkles! They're diamonds, real diamonds, worth ever so much money. I only wish—"

Her voice fell and died away in confused murmurings.

"So," said the doctor, "her mind runs upon diamonds! Curious what a fascination they have for her sex! Many a woman is ready to sell her soul for them; but I should have thought this child was too young to have felt the temptation. But who knows! Perhaps the devil has thus baited his trap for her too."

He was speaking to himself rather than to Bert, who looked at him in wonder and made no reply, though the words inspired him with a vague uneasiness.

Mr. Hurst then gave Bert various plain and simple directions as to what he should do for his sister.

"Will she get better, sir?" Bert asked.

The doctor did not seem to hear the question.

"Now mind what I have told you," he said as he departed. "I'll send the medicine directly, and you must give it to her at once."

"All right," said Bert. But, left alone with his unconscious sister in that dismal room, he felt as if nothing were right.

Bert proved a better nurse than the doctor could have believed. Love helped him to find out the best way of waiting on the patient, and inducing her to swallow the milk which the doctor had ordered her to have from time to time. The thin, worn mattress had slipped out of place under Prin's restless movements. Bert was exerting all his strength to drag it back into its right position, when suddenly a strange light flashed from beneath the corner he had raised. What could it be that gleamed so in that dark room? Bert turned up the mattress, and beheld, pinned to its inner side, a brilliant sparkling thing, which on examination proved to be a tiny brooch in the shape of a star. With trembling fingers Bert unfastened it and laid it on his palm, where, as the light fell on it, the costly ornament emitted flashes of dazzling, rainbow-hued brilliance.

Bert knew instinctively that the radiant gems which composed the brooch were diamonds of the utmost value. The sight inspired him with terror. His face grew white to the very lips as he looked at it, and the hand which held the diamond star trembled. For to him that beautiful object had the ugly face of a sin. He knew now what it was that Lady Millicent had missed, and he knew that Prin had stolen it; for assuredly no such radiant star had glittered on the dingy mattress when he made the bed for his sister on the night of her return. The discovery fell like a cruel blow on the loving heart in which the Princess was enthroned.