She did not speak, half-guessing what was coming.
“I want to know this, first of all,” he said, speaking quite quietly. “What shall I look like when these things are healed, when the bandages come off?”
Nurse James was essentially a truthful woman, but she did not hesitate about her reply. There are times when no decent person would hesitate about telling a lie, the bigger the better. She laughed.
“Well, I never!” she said. “And have you brought me from my bed just to ask that! I never heard such a thing. Why, you will look as you always have looked, Mr. Dundas, but your eyelids will be shut.”
The good, kind woman suddenly felt that the ease with which all this came to her was almost appalling. She was a glorious liar, and had never known it till now.
“Why, bless you,” she went on, “your wife was in here when your face was dressed to-day, and—you were still under morphia, you know, and did not know she was there—and she said to Dr. Inglis: ‘Why, he only looks as if he was asleep.’”
“She has seen me, then?” asked Evelyn eagerly. “She has seen my face?”
“Why, of course, and she bent and kissed it, just as your wife should do. There’s a brave woman now. Is that all, sir?”
Evelyn gave one great sigh of relief.
“Yes, nurse,” he said. “I am sorry I disturbed you. Yet I assure you it was worth while. I can’t tell you how you have relieved me. I thought—oh, my God! it is not hell after all.”