“Mother, when you talk like that you aggravate me past bearing.”
Mrs. Ives walked across the sitting-room and threw open the door of the bedroom.
“Don’t you go and wake him,” she said. “He’s strong now—brown as a nut and as handsome as a picture. Come along, we’ll have a look at him.”
Mrs. Ives lit a candle and they went into the bedroom. The boy was lying on a small bed which had been made up in a corner of the room. Clara bent over him.
The child in his sleep looked like an angel. Once he stirred, and when he did so that thing within her which no one else had ever brought to life began to make itself apparent. Her feeling for Tarbot was passion, but her feeling for the boy was love, pure and holy.
“Hush, hush! don’t wake him,” she said; but her words came too late. The old woman made a hasty movement, knocking over a little table as she did so. The boy started in his sleep, opened his eyes and looked full at Clara.
“I am so glad you have come back again,” he cried. The next instant his soft arms were round her neck, and she felt his kisses on her thin cheek.
“I’m so glad you have come back,” he repeated, “and I have kept it—I have really. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Dear little Piers,” said Clara.
“Are you going to stay with me? I’d like it awfully; I have a lot of things I want to talk to you about. You know all my secrets, and it would be a real comfort to talk to you. Please, grannie (nurse, I always call your mother ‘grannie’), please, grannie, go out of the room. I want to say things to my nurse—oh, I forgot, you don’t want me to call you ‘nurse’ any more, do you?”