"No. I was awake."
"Are you in pain?"
"No. Oh, no!
"You are weeping."
"That," she moved slightly the hand Mrs. Hanbury had kissed, "that made me, oh, so happy."
"Thank you, dear."
No more words were uttered, but when Mrs. Hanbury looked down upon her book her own eyes were full.
The touch of the lips upon that hand had brought more quiet into the girl's heart than all the muffling in the house or the whispered orders to the servants or the doctor's drugs.
"She believed I was asleep and she kissed my hand," thought the girl. No quiet such as this had ever entered her bosom before.