He turned back to the room and looked for his clothes. There were no clothes there. But the shirt he had on was like the shirt he had slept in at the beautiful house.
He turned to open the door, and there was no door. All was dark, even panelling. He was not shut in a room but in a box. Nonsense, boxes did not have beds in them and windows.
And then suddenly he was no longer the clever person who had managed everything so admirably—who was living two lives with such credit in both, who was managing a grown man for that grown man's good; but just a little boy rather badly frightened.
The little shirt was the only thing that helped, and that only gave him the desperate courage to beat on the panels and shout, "Nurse! Nurse! Nurse——!"
A crack of light split and opened between two panels, they slid back and between them the nurse came to him—the nurse with the ruff and the frilled cap and the kind, wrinkled face.
He got his arms round her big, comfortable waist.
"There, there, my lamb!" she said, petting him. His clothes hung over her arm, his doublet and little fat breeches, his stockings and the shoes with rosettes.
"Oh, I am here—oh, I am so glad. I thought I'd got to somewhere different."
She sat down on the bed and began to dress him, soothing him back to confidence with gentle touches and pet names.
"Listen," she said, when it came to the silver sugar-loaf buttons of the doublet. "You must listen carefully. It is a month since you went away."