The low camp-bed lent her a fictitious air of height, as did also the unbroken line of her blue dressing-gown, with its cloud of misty whiteness at the throat. A shaded lamp in a far corner clashed with the first glimmer of dawn; and in the dimness Evelyn's face showed pale and indistinct, save for two dusky semicircles where her lashes rested on her cheek. Desmond saw all this, because at night the shade was discarded, though the rakish bandage still eclipsed his right eye. He lay lapped in a pleasant sense of the unreality of outward things, and his wife—dimly seen and motionless—had the air of a dream-figure in a dream.
Suddenly she leaned down, and caressed his damp hair with a familiar lightness of touch.
"I heard you move, darling," she whispered. "I've been sitting such a long, long while alone; and I badly wanted you to wake up."
"Such a brave Ladybird!" he said, imprisoning her fingers. "You seem to be on duty all the time. They haven't been letting you do too much, have they?"
"Oh no; I'm not clever enough to do much," she answered, a little wistfully. "It is Honor who really does everything."
Desmond frowned. Mention of Honor effectually dispelled the dream. "I choose to believe that everything isn't her doing," he said with unnecessary emphasis.
But for once Evelyn was disposed to extol Honor at her own expense. She had been lifted, for the time being, higher than she knew.
"It is, Theo—truly," she persisted, perching lightly on the edge of the bed, though she had been reminded half a dozen times that the "patient's" bed must not be treated as a chair. "I don't know anything about nursing people. Honor just told me that I was going to do it beautifully, that I wasn't really frightened or stupid at all; and somehow, she has made it all come true. She's been ever so kind and patient; and I'm not half so nervous now when I'm left alone all night. She writes out every little thing I have to do, and sits up herself in her own room. She's sitting there now, reading or writing, so I can go to her any minute if I really want help. She knows it comforts me to feel there's some one else awake; and she does her own nights of nursing just the same. I often wonder how she stands it all."
Desmond drew in his breath with a sharp sound. The infinitely much that he owed to this girl, at every turn, threatened to become a torment beyond endurance.