Lady Carbis leant over him and kissed him, just as I have seen young mothers kiss their firstborn babies.
'I will sit by your bed all the night, my darling,' she said, 'and no harm shall come to you while you are asleep.'
'But I don't want to sleep just yet,' went on Edgecumbe. 'I feel as though I must tell you all I can tell you, for fear,—that is, suppose when I wake the old black cloud is there? I—I want you to know things'; and there was a look in his eyes which suggested that wistful expression I had noticed at Plymouth Harbour when we first met.
'You felt something was going to happen, you know,' I said.
'Yes, I did. All through the day it felt to me as though some great change were coming. I did not know what it was, and the curtain which hid the past was as black as ever, but I had a kind of feeling that everything was hanging as in a balance, that—that—eh, mother, it is good to see you! to know you, to—to—have a past! It was just like this,' he went on: 'when I came downstairs, and saw George St. Mabyn, I felt that the curtain was getting thinner. I remembered Maurice St. Mabyn,—it was only dimly, and I could not call to mind what happened to him; but something impelled me to speak to him.'
'Don't talk about it any more, old fellow,' I said; 'you are not well enough yet. To-morrow, after you have had a good night's rest, everything will seem normal and natural.'
'It is normal and natural now,' he laughed; 'besides, it does me good to talk about it to you. It is not as though you were a stranger.'
'No,' cried his mother, 'he has told us all about you, sir, and what you did for him.'
'Perhaps, after all,' went on Edgecumbe, 'I had better not talk any more to-night. You—you think I'll be all right in the morning, don't you? And I am feeling tired and sleepy. Besides, I feel like a kid again;—the idea of going to bed with the little mother holding my hand makes me think of——'
'There now, old man,' I interrupted, 'let me go with you to your room. You are a bit shaky, you know, and you must look upon me as a stern male nurse.'