"Ach, I am glad! Come in. Hush, your aunt sleeps—"
"You weren't sitting up for us, were you, Herr Schmidt?" Nell asked.
"Nein, nein, Fräulein! I sit up late always, and I tell your aunt I will open ze door to you. You will come in and tell me about your evening, hein?"
Sheila Pat's gaiety had gone; her face looked pale and tired.
Up in the Stronghold Molly lay in the arm-chair fast asleep, but Kate Kearney flew to welcome them.
Nell, looking at the Atom's weary little face, and hearing her sharp responses to Molly's questions, cut the talk short. Molly went to bed bewildered with sleepiness and hearing that Denis's speech hadn't been his speech at all.
To Nell he explained more fully.
"It was your face, Nell! I stood there, and it had all gone—I couldn't remember a word! Whether it was poor old Lancaster's bad example, I don't know. And all of a sudden I met your eyes. Oh, Nell," with a chuckle, "you did look so agonised, so beseeching! And it was exactly how you looked at me that day when the Colleen Bawn knocked that hole into her foreleg—d'you remember?—and you were trying to stop the bleeding, when I came up. Well, I'd got to stop it for you, somehow, and I did. And to-night I'd got to speak a speech, and I did."
"Yes, you did."
She was silent, gazing into the fire.