“I have seen him... Yes,” she faltered, her eyes filling anew. She stretched out a hand to him impulsively. “Tell me how he is,” she entreated. “Is he going to die?”
“I hope not,” he answered, but neither the words nor his manner of uttering them greatly reassured her. “He is very ill. You saw that.”
She nodded again.
“He’ll be worse before he’s better. We have to send for trained nurses. The care he is having at present is inadequate.”
“I’ll nurse him,” she cried eagerly, jealously. “Oh! let me nurse him. It is something that I can do.”
He looked at her strangely. For a second he hesitated, then he said, very slowly and deliberately, with his grave eyes on her face:
“I’m going to be very unkind; but I’m sure you’ll recognise the necessity for my veto when you consider how unfortunate in effect your presence has already been. You must not think of nursing your husband, Mrs Lawless. You must not, unless he asks for you, enter the room. Sick people have strange fancies,” he added in pity for her wrung and suffering face. “It is often necessary to make these unnatural restrictions.”
She stared at him with an unspeakable anguish in her eyes.
“They’ll call me,” she said, “if—They won’t let him die without allowing me to see him?”
“Oh dear! no,” he answered quickly. “Of course not—no!”