Helen, too, had her hands over her eyes; she, too, was shuddering but not moving. She brought her hands down with a kind of wrench, stiffened her chin, and then stepped behind the screen.
"Cousin Phil!" she said, striving to keep her voice steady—and she saw that his glazed eyes were sightless.
"He is quite deaf from shell-shock, too!" said Dr. Smythe.
So this was Helen's cousin; therefore, Henriette's.
For a moment she was silent, with deep breaths, as if between impulses, before she dropped down beside the cot. Those hammers could not prevent Phil from knowing that a woman's hand was grasping his, a soft palm and slim fingers were pressing his tight, as if they would send a current of cheer through him. She could do that when he was so monstrous! If only the shell had finished him. With her other hand she was rolling up his sleeve; then she slipped her left hand in place of the right in his. Dr. Smythe and the nurse in attendance looked on in a spell of tragic curiosity.
Now Phil felt a finger moving on his arm. Sensitive little nerves—he had never known that there were such sensitive ones—followed the movement and carried the sense of their progress to the brain in spite of the hammers.
"I am trying to write so you will understand," she slowly traced the letters. "If you do, two pressures of the hand is yes."
"Yes," came the signal.
"He does!" said Helen, smiling up to Dr. Smythe in triumph.
"Ripping!" he said.