"Nora, you will laugh at me—I want to know, have I been talking—in my sleep, I mean?"
"No."
"I am glad." Again the same half-pleading, half-frightened smile played about the colourless lips. "I have been having such mad dreams—not bad dreams—only so—so untrue, so unreal. I should not have liked you to know them. You might have thought——" She stopped, and her clasp tightened.
"You know how I love you, don't you, Nora?"
"Yes, I think so—more than I deserve."
"Not as much, but still, very dearly. That was what I wanted to tell you. It seems foolish—in the middle of the night like this; but I was so afraid you would not understand. You do, though, don't you?"
"Of course." Nora spoke soothingly, but with a dim knowledge that she had not wholly understood. There was, indeed, a message in those broken sentences, but one to which she had no key.
"You have been good to me," Hildegarde went on rapidly. "Though you possess all that makes life worth living, you have not jarred on me with your wealth. You have not tried to comfort me with the truism that there are others more suffering than I—such a poor sort of comfort, isn't it? As though it made me happy to think that more suffering was possible—inevitable! When I am ill, I like to think that I am the exception—that the great law of life is happiness. And you are life and happiness personified, Nora, and so I love you. I love you so that I grudge you nothing—shall never grudge you anything. That is—what—I want—you to understand!" The last words came like a sigh, and there was a long silence. The earnest eyes had closed, and she seemed to sleep. Nora knelt down by the bedside, still holding the thin white hand between her own, and so remained until, overcome by weariness, her head sank on to the coverlet. Half an hour passed, and then suddenly a rough movement startled her from her dreams. Again she heard her name called, this time desperately, wildly, as though the caller stood at the brink of some hideous chasm.
"Nora! Nora!"
Nora made no answer. She stumbled to her feet and stood half-paralysed, looking at the features which in an instant had undergone so terrible a change. Hildegarde sat bolt upright. Her hair was disordered, her eyes, gleaming out of the ashy face, were fixed on the darkness behind Nora with a terrible entreaty in their depths.