His thin arms locked round the neck of the young nurse.
She heard me. She came to the door and stood in silhouette against the cheerful firelight of the inner room. Its glow just warmed one side of her white cap and plain apparel, then glanced off her high white forehead and made a tear twinkle underneath.
"He thinks I'm his mother," she whispered—"and I'm letting him!"
I went out and pulled myself together on the landing, before sneaking back into the study without waking Coplestone.
In the morning I was dozing behind my counter without compunction, for the vigil had been an absolutely sleepless one for me, when the glass door opened like a clap of thunder, and in comes Delavoye rubbing his hands.
"The doctor's grinning all round his head this morning!" he crowed. "You may take it from me that there's a lot of life in our young dog yet."
"What's his temperature?"
"Down to a hundred and a bit. One thing at a time. They've scotched that infernal delirium, at all events."