Her heart began to beat a little less nervously. The fear and the uneasiness began to slip from her. When she would have got up Camilla held her back a moment.
"You have been so good to me," she said in a broken way, "and you give me such a sense of strength, of comfort. How angry nurse would have been if I had disturbed her as I have disturbed you! Dennis is right. I have never had any one about me like you before."
Caroline smiled. There was a great sweetness in her face.
To the woman looking at her she had still that spiritual touch about her, and yet she was human, human in the most exquisite meaning of the word.
"Do let me help you to undress.... I am sure you ought to be in bed," she urged.
She got her way, and a little later, after she had tended Camilla as if she had been a tired child, she stood and looked at the mother nestling down in the bed between those two small slumbering forms, and the sight brought tears to her eyes.
"I am going to stay a little while in case you want me," she whispered.
Camilla heard her as in a dream.
The hot agony had passed from her heart and a sense of exhaustion fell upon her; she lay with a hand touching each of her children, and Caroline moved about the room softly, putting it tidy.
She picked up the lace gown from the floor; she laid it and the magnificent wrap on the couch.