The doctor said of Gregory four days after, “She is the most experienced nurse I ever came in contact with.”
Gregory, standing in the passage, heard it and laughed in his heart. What need had he of experience? Experience teaches us in a millennium what passion teaches us in an hour. A Kaffer studies all his life the discerning of distant sounds; but he will never hear my step, when my love hears it, coming to her window in the dark over the short grass.
At first Gregory’s heart was sore when day by day the body grew lighter, and the mouth he fed took less; but afterward he grew accustomed to it, and was happy. For passion has one cry, one only—“Oh, to touch thee, Beloved!”
In that quiet room Lyndall lay on the bed with the dog at her feet, and Gregory sat in his dark corner watching.
She seldom slept, and through those long, long days she would lie watching the round streak of sunlight that came through the knot in the shutter, or the massive lion’s paw on which the wardrobe rested. What thoughts were in those eyes? Gregory wondered; he dared not ask.
Sometimes Doss where he lay on her feet would dream that they two were in the cart, tearing over the veld, with the black horses snorting, and the wind in their faces; and he would start up in his sleep and bark aloud. Then awaking, he would lick his mistress’ hand almost remorsefully, and slink quietly down into his place.
Gregory thought she had no pain, she never groaned; only sometimes, when the light was near her, he thought he could see contractions about her lips and eyebrows.
He slept on the sofa outside her door.
One night he thought he heard a sound, and, opening it softly, he looked in. She was crying out aloud, as if she and her pain were alone in the world. The light fell on the red quilt, and the little hands that were clasped over the head. The wide-open eyes were looking up, and the heavy drops fell slowly from them.
“I cannot bear any more, not any more,” she said in a deep voice. “Oh, God, God! have I not borne in silence? Have I not endured these long, long months? But now, now, oh, God, I cannot!”