"Yes," she said, steadily.
"I thought so. I've had a kind of feeling that you were there. What's it all about? Wasn't I down at the jumps with Rackham,—and the horse went up—? Did I get damaged?"
"Rather," she said.
"And you didn't fly to America?"
"No," she said.
His weak, amused voice, talking in pauses, smote on her heart.
"Ah," said Barnaby. "It would have looked bad if you'd bolted, wouldn't it? No end heartless. Susan,—oh, I've noticed things, off and on,—you've been killing yourself looking after me.—"
His smile was troubled. She shook her head at him.
"You didn't do it," he said, "because, oh,—because of some queer notion that you owed us something—? You didn't do it to make it up to us,—to pay us out?"
She put her arm under his pillow and, raising him slightly, lifted the cup to him and let him drink. If Barnaby could have known:—if he could have seen her claiming him in her hour of desperation—! If he could have dimly guessed what a dreadful happiness had walked hand in hand with pain! She had won something of her mad adventure. She was the woman who had nursed him, who had waked night after night at his pillow. Nobody could rob her of that. And when she was gone he would perhaps think of her with kindness....