"And would it make them better to deny them, Master Carol?"
"Oh, yes, Nurse. You are thinking the bruises are very sore and painful, are you not?"
Yes, Nurse was decidedly dwelling in thought upon the pain the boy must be suffering from such a bruised condition.
"If you could think, Nurse, that there is no sensation in matter, that the pain is all in mind: in my mind and your mind, and Auntie's and the doctor's. You are all thinking how I must be suffering. If only someone would help me to deny it!"
"I wish I could, Master Carol."
But it was double Dutch to Nurse to try to understand that the pain was in mind, and not in the poor bruised body.
It was half-past nine when she moved the time-piece so that Carol could see it, and he at once began to count how many hours it would be till morning. At ten o'clock Mrs. Mandeville returned to the room, followed by Dr. Burton. Nurse held up a warning finger as they entered: the boy was asleep.
"This is splendid! How long has he slept?" the doctor asked.
"It was just after half-past nine, sir. He seemed in great pain, I thought there was no hope of sleep for him, and all at once he just dropped off without a word."
It was such a beautiful sleep, calm, peaceful, untroubled by fret or moan. Mrs. Mandeville and the doctor watched beside him an hour; then the doctor left, and Mrs. Mandeville was persuaded to go to her own room for a night's rest, leaving Nurse in charge. They did not know, nor could they have understood had they known, how, far away, a woman, 'clad in the whole armour of God,' was fighting for him: fighting error with 'the sword of the Spirit.'