There was a man lying in the bed, and Bridget looked at him. Her heart beat so fast, that she felt for a moment sick and suffocated. The Sister bent over him tenderly, and put back the hair, the grey hair which had fallen over his forehead. At the touch, his eyes opened, and as he saw the Sister's face he very faintly smiled. Bridget suddenly put out a hand and steadied herself by a chair standing beside the bed. The Sister however saw nothing but the face on the pillow, and the smile. The smile was so rare!—it was the one sufficient reward for all his nurses did for him.
'Now I'll leave you,' said the Sister, forbearing to ask any further questions. 'Won't you sit down there? If you want anyone, you have only to touch that bell.'
She disappeared. And Bridget sat down, her eyes on the figure in the bed, and on the hand outside the sheet. Her own hands were trembling, as they lay crossed upon her lap.
How grey and thin the hair was—how ghostly the face—what suffering in every line!
Bridget drew closer.
'George!' she whispered.
No answer. The man's eyes were closed again. He seemed to be asleep.
Bridget looked at his hand—intently. Then she touched it.
The heavy blue-veined eyelids rose again, as though at the only summons the brain understood. Bridget bent forward. What colour there had been in it before ebbed from her sallow face; her lips grew white. The eyes of the man in the bed met hers—first mechanically—without any sign of consciousness; then—was it imagination?—or was there a sudden change of expression—a quick trouble—a flickering of the lids? Bridget shook through every limb. If he recognised her, if the sight of her brought memory back—even a gleam of it—there was an end of everything, of course. She had only to go to the nearest telegraph office and send for Nelly.
But the momentary stimulus passed as she looked—the eyes grew vacant again—the lids fell. Bridget drew a long breath. She raised herself and moved her chair farther away.
Time passed. The window behind her was open, and the sun came in, and stole over the bed. The sick man scarcely moved at all. There was complete silence, except for the tread of persons in the corridor outside, and certain distant sounds of musketry and bomb practice from the military camp half a mile away.