“Yes,” she said, “I am Clare Kenwardine. But drink this; then I’ll put the pillows straight and you must keep still.”
Dick drained the glass and lay down again, for he was weaker than he thought.
“Thanks! Don’t go back into the dark. You have been here all the time? I mean, since I came.”
“As you were seldom quite conscious until this morning, how did you know?”
“I didn’t know, in a way, and yet I did. There was somebody about who made me think of England, and then, you see, I heard you sing.”
“Still,” she said, smiling, “I don’t quite understand.”
“Don’t you?” said Dick, who felt he must make things plain. “Well, you stole in and out and sat here sometimes when Lucille was tired. I didn’t exactly notice you—perhaps I was too ill—but I felt you were there, and that was comforting.”
“And yet you are surprised to see me now!”
“I can’t have explained it properly. I didn’t know you were Miss Kenwardine; but I felt I knew you and kept trying to remember, but I was feverish and my mind wouldn’t take your image in. For all that, something told me it was really there already, and I’d be able to recognize it if I waited. It was like a photograph that wasn’t developed.”
“You’re feverish now,” Clare answered quietly. “I mustn’t let you talk so much.”