She looked across at him where he stood, and again that dim room was silent, so that the slightest sound would have been a relief.
“Are you fixed upon going?” she said at last; and then she started, for his voice rang out now strongly. “Yes,” he cried, “I must.”
“Alone, with no hand to help you to fight this good fight? No: you must not go alone. Take me with you. I will go.”
He started from the chimney-piece, for a wildly delirious thought made his brain reel; but she stood there before him, pale and calm, as if the words she had uttered were of the simplest kind.
He made almost a superhuman effort over self as he felt that the mad thought within him must be crushed.
“No,” he said coldly; “your love for the profession you embraced leads you astray. I shall find nurses there. What, you?” he cried almost fiercely. “Woman, your place is here.”
She took a step toward him, and held out her hands, and her voice was very low.
“I thought all that was dead for me,” she almost whispered, “that the past had burned my heart to ashes, and I have fought long and hard to do my duty in the path that I had marked out for my own through life. I did not know. Neil, how could you misjudge me so!”
He seemed to stagger at her words; his lips moved, but no sound came, and when at last he spoke, his voice sounded hoarse and strange.
“But Alison—my brother?” he cried.