"I didn't hear the bell," said Coplestone.
"Still, I believe that's Nurse Agnes on the stairs."
I had heard one creak, but only one, and the nurse was on tip-toe outside the door as Coplestone opened it. She might have been a thief, she seemed so startled.
"Why, nurse, what do you mean by trying to give me the slip?" he said in his hearty voice. "Do you know they all tell me you've saved my little chap's life, and yet I've hardly seen you all the time? You'd always fixed him up for the night by the time I'd finished dinner, and I've been so late in the morning that we've kept on missing each other at both ends. You've got to spare me a moment now, you know!"
But Nurse Agnes would only stand mumbling and smiling in the half-lit hall.
"I—I mustn't lose my train," was all I heard.
And then I realised that even I had only heard her voice once before, and that now it did not sound the same voice. It was not meant to sound the same—that was why—I had it in a flash. And in that flash I saw that Nurse Agnes had been keeping out of our way all these days and nights, keeping us out of her way by a dozen tacit little regulations which had seemed only proper and professional at the time.
But a fiercer light had struck Coplestone like a lash across the eyes. And he started back as though stung and blinded, until Nurse Agnes tried to dart past the door; then his long arm shot out, and I shuddered as he dragged her in by hers.
"You!" he gasped, and his jaw worked as though he had been knocked out in the ring.
"Yes," she said coolly, facing him through her veil; "and they're quite right—I've saved your boy for you. Do you mind letting me go?"