The nurse touched his arm. “Speak to her,” she whispered. “It will make no difference. She has asked many times for you.”
“She is—alive?”
“And conscious.”
“It will not—harm her to arouse her?”
“Nothing can harm her.”
Kendall understood. Little Arlette was past hurt now, and he had been brought there to give to the child her last little moment of happiness.... He knelt by the cot.
“Mignonne,” he said, softly.
She opened her eyes and stared at him, and then smiled.
“He is come. Regard him. I said he would come.” Her voice was so faint as to be almost no voice at all.
“Of a certainty I have come,” he said. “What could keep me away from my little sweetheart?... Does—does it hurt?”