"Paul," she said at his ear, low, but so distinctly that we all heard. "Don't you know me, dear? It's Nelly, come back to take care of you, and look after you and love you all the rest of your life. You're going to get well, aren't you, dear, for her sake? 'Cos you mustn't break her heart a second time, you know. And, dear, she doesn't want you to talk; but won't you just open your poor tired eyes once, a teeny second, to show you know whose arm is round you? Because she's been waiting, waiting—oh, such a weary time! just waiting, dear, till you sent for her."
There was silence for a few seconds, broken only by the unrestrained sobbing of the little day nurse at the foot of the bed.
Then Ingram opened his eyes.
"I don't know whether he's going to die or get well," I said, some hours later. I was trying to swallow chateaubriand and champagne and unmanly emotion all at the same time, which doesn't help lucidity. But I'd been supporting an anxious day on a tin and a half of cigarettes, and the champagne was old Smeaton's fault, so perhaps I shall be forgiven. "I don't know whether he's going to get well or die. I can't feel it matters much, to-night. You'd know what I meant if you'd seen his face. Oh! it was wonderful. I think I know now how a man looks when he wakes in heaven and knows he very nearly missed it. And the Barbour woman, crooning and cooing over him, and the nurses snivelling, and all those doctors trying to pull the poor devil back to life! Yes, you can laugh if you like, Smeaton. But I say it's a damned fine old world, and I'm glad to have a place where I can sit and watch it—even if it is only a second-floor front and back in Pimlico."
[1] Possibly Prussic acid.—Ed.
[2] Worcester
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