"Yes," he said restlessly. "Yes.... It wasn't fair."
She had no means of knowing that he meant it was unfair to her. She held on to herself, though she felt her face turning cold with the sudden pallor of fright.
"I think it can be annulled," she said steadily. "No, I suppose it wasn't fair."
She stopped to get her breath and catch at the only things that mattered—steadiness, quietness, ability to soothe Allan!
"It can be annulled," she said again evenly. "But listen to me now, Allan. It will take quite a while. It can't be done to-night, or before you are stronger. So for your own sake you must try to rest now. Everything shall come right. I promise you it shall be annulled. But forget it now, please. I am going to hold your wrists and talk to you, recite things for you, till you go back to sleep."
She wondered afterwards how she could have spoken with that hard serenity, how she could have gone steadily on with story after story, poem after poem, till Allan's grip on her hands relaxed, and he fell into a heavy, tired sleep.
"BUT YOU SEE—HE'S—ALL I HAVE ... GOOD-NIGHT, WALLIS"
She sat on the side of the bed and looked at him, lying still against his white pillows. She looked and looked, and presently the tears began to slide silently down her cheeks. She did not lift her hands to wipe them away. She sat and cried silently, openly, like a desolate, unkindly treated child.
"Mrs. Allan! Mrs. Allan, ma'am!" came Wallis's concerned whisper from the doorway. "Don't take it as hard as that. It's just a little relapse. He was overtired. I shouldn't have called you, but you always quiet him so."