"Nothing could be worse," the doctor said and he went away with a grave face, a deeply troubled man.
When Dowie went back to the Tower room she found Robin standing at a window looking out on the moorside. She turned and spoke and Dowie saw that intuition had told her what had been talked about.
"I will try to be good, Dowie," she said. "But it comes—it comes because—suddenly I know all over again that I can never see him any more. If I could only see him—even a long way off! But suddenly it all comes back that I can never see him again—Never!"
Later she begged Dowie not to come to her in the night if she heard sounds in her room.
"It will not hurt you so much if you don't see me," she said. "I'm used to being by myself. When I was at Eaton Square I used to hide my face deep in the pillow and press it against my mouth. No one heard. But no one was listening as you will be. Don't come in, Dowie darling. Please don't!"
All she wanted, Dowie found out as the days went by, was to be quiet and to give no trouble. No other desires on earth had been left to her. Her life had not taught her to want many things. And now—:
"Oh! please don't be unhappy! If I could only keep you from being unhappy—until it is over!" she broke out all unconsciously one day. And then was smitten to the heart by the grief in Dowie's face.
That was the worst of it all and sometimes caused Dowie's desperate hope and courage to tremble on the brink of collapse. The child was thinking that before her lay the time when it would be "all over."
A patient who held to such thoughts as her hidden comfort did not give herself much chance.