Scripps! The name he had used to hide behind when he came to Umballa. The name which—she had always felt sure, though she never knew—he had gone by in Tahiti and the other islands of the South Pacific where he had spent his exile.
What did it mean? Who? What? A score of questions, scores of conjectures, assumptions, suppositions assailed her like an army.
For the moment she was absorbed, lost in a maze of the possible and the impossible; from which a knocking, thrice repeated, upon the room door caught her back with a start. It was a nurse, who said:
"Lord Kneedrock is conscious."
She went, at once glad and full of dread, to find all the rest there before her.
"He has recognized each of us," whispered the duke. "But he hasn't spoken."
The duchess, with her handkerchief pressed to her face, was vainly trying to suppress her sobs. Lord Bellingdown was clasping the sufferer's remaining hand and murmuring: "Good old Nibbetts!"
("You might have thought the poor chap was a dog," said Lady Bellingdown when she related it to Lord Waltheof in the privacy of her own home the next day.)
Nina drew near on the other side of the bed. There was very little light in the room, but Kneedrock seemed to note her presence instantly. His head didn't move—he was too weak for that—but his eyes turned to her. And she read the look in them. They beckoned. He wished to say something.
She leaned toward him, and his pale lips moved. There wasn't a sound though, not the faintest. Then Nina sat down softly on the side of the bed and bent her head until her ear felt his breath.