Her sin had found her out. She was terrified. He lay just as he had lain before—only not quite—not quite! His arms were not just as they had been; the coverlet was slightly, ever so slightly, disturbed. The nurse would see it and know that....
There was a stirring of a hand. It was so little of a stirring that she thought her eyes must have deceived her when it stirred again—a restless toss, like a muscular contraction in sleep. She was not alarmed now, only excited, and wondering what she ought to do. She ought to run to the head of the stairs and call Miss Moines, only that she couldn’t bring herself to leave him.
Then, as she stood in her attitude of doubt, the eyes opened and looked at her. They looked at her straight, and yet glassily. They looked at her with no gladness in the look, almost with no recognition. If anything there was a kind of sickness there, as if the finding her by his bedside was a disappointment.
“I know what it is,” she said to herself. “He wants—her.”
But the eyes closed again. The face was as white, the profile as rigid, as ever.
She sped to Barbara, who was lying on a couch in the front spare room. “Come! He woke up! He wants you!”
Back in the bedroom she effaced herself. They 347 were all there now—Barbara, Steptoe, and Miss Moines.
“It’s what he would do,” Miss Moines corroborated, “if he was coming back.”
Letty had told part of what she had seen, but only part of it. The rest was her secret. The little mermaid’s kiss had left the prince as inanimate as before; hers had brought him back to life!
It was the moment to run away. Miss Moines had said that having once opened his eyes he would open them again. When he did he mustn’t find her there. They were all so intent on watching that this was her opportunity.