“Why not?” he said.
She leaned back in the chair, her face paling; and for a second or so neither spoke. Dare remained waiting with a certain confidence for her answer. It occurred to him that she knew herself to be beaten. All the fight was gone out of her. She had the air of a creature trapped and frantically seeking a way of escape. If he pointed the way in all probability she would take it.
What decision she came to, or if she came to any decision, he had no means then of knowing. While he waited for her to speak the door of the room opened, and the matron appeared, and stood on the threshold, surveying the scene with manifest surprise. Dare glanced over his shoulder at her, but he did not move.
“Mrs Arnott is feeling a little upset,” he said.
She came forward quickly.
“Shall I fetch anything?—water?”
“I don’t think that is necessary,” he replied. And Pamela sat up with a quickly uttered protest.
“It is nothing,” she said. “Just shock. I wasn’t prepared to see such a change. I’ve never seen any one ill,—really ill, like that, before. I’m all right now. It was stupid of me to be so foolish. But,” she looked at the matron piteously, with quivering lips, “he is so altered,” she said pathetically. “He is quite old.”
The matron felt puzzled. In her long experience of sickness she had never known the patient’s appearance to be the chief concern of the relatives. She felt a little unsympathetic towards Mrs Arnott’s attitude.
“An illness like Mr Arnott’s would change any one,” she answered. “The difference will be less marked as he gains strength. Your visit seems to have done him good already. He is sleeping quite quietly and comfortably.”