"But it's all right," I added quickly, when I saw the utter consternation in his face. "It's all right. You can find a room for me to-morrow, somewhere near and I'll sleep out. It's better that I should sleep out—at least, I suppose it is. I don't exactly know what the husband would do under these circumstances; I suppose he'd remain in the house."
At that moment, when Moxon's face was such a picture as memory will make graphic to my mind for the rest of my life, Nurse Barham opened the door, and in the astringent acid of her voice she said:
"Mrs. Bellairs would like to see you for a moment, sir—as soon as you can come up. It must only be for a moment."
I looked at Moxon. I know just how I looked. I meant to. He never said a word; he just watched me as I followed the nurse out of the room. When I reached the door I turned back.
"You can stay here, Moxon," said I, "in this room till I come downstairs again."
Then as I climbed up to my bedroom, all thoughts of the difficulties of that situation went clean from me. Clarissa wanted to speak to me, and I could not stop the beating of my heart. This was the first time I had seen her since we had laid her tired little head on my pillow, when I had left the room with the vision of her closed eyes and the transparent whiteness of her cheeks. That vision had lasted with me till now. Now I was to see her awake; but her head would still be on my pillow.
At the door I paused, partly, I confess, to control the confusion of my emotions.
"How long may I stay?" I whispered.
"I'll come back in five minutes," the nurse replied, as she opened the door. I crept upon the tips of my toes into the room, and she closed the door after me. She closed it far less gently than I should have done, for at the sound of it, Clarissa raised her head from the pillow. Directly she saw it was me, she let it fall back again. Perhaps it was my fancy, but I think a warm flush swept over her cheeks. Doubtless she was timid; but she could not have been so timid as was I. I crept quietly to the side of the bed, and it seemed then, in that still room, as though my heart, beating, were the only thing that moved or broke the silence.
"Are you better?" I whispered.