Leslie did so.
“Turn the key in the lock, please.”
“Oh, Marjorie! is that right to your mother?”
“I won’t see mother, and I won’t see Lettie. Lock the door, will you, at once?”
Leslie instantly turned the well-oiled key in the lock. When she had done so, Marjorie sat up, pushed the hair from her forehead, and looked at Leslie from between her swollen eyelids.
“I feel so dazed,” she said.
Her face was red and inflamed in parts, and deadly white in other parts, her eyes had sunk into her head, and their color was almost washed away with violent weeping.
“Oh, come close, Leslie,” she said, suddenly stretching out her arms; “let me lean against you.”
Leslie went up to her; she clasped her own strong arms round her, laid the tired, flushed face against her breast, pushed back the hair with one of her hands, and began gently to stroke the hot cheek.
“There, darling, there,” said Leslie. She did not say anything more, not even “I am sorry for you,” but she kept on repeating the “there, darling, there,” until Marjorie, like a tired baby, closed her eyes, and actually dropped off to sleep.