“I must go now for an hour or so,” the Sister went on. “That poor creature in Number Six needs me; they daren't give her any more morphia. You don't need it—happy boy!” she said to Stephen, and at the look he sent her for answer she turned rather quickly to the door. Dear Sister, she was none of the Fates, she was obliged to give directions to Hilda standing in the door with her back turned. Happily for a deserved reputation for self-command they were few. It was chief and absolute that no one should be admitted. A bulletin had been put up at the hospital door for the information of inquiries; later on when the doctor came again there would be another.
She went away and they were left alone. The sun on the floor had vanished; a yellowness stood in its place with a grey background, the background gaining, coming on. Always his eyes were upon her, she had given hers back to him and he seemed satisfied. She moved closer to the bed and stood beside him. Since there was nothing to do there was nothing to say. Stephen put out his hand and touched a fold of her dress.
The room filled itself with something that had not been there before, his impotent love. Hilda knelt down beside the bed and pressed her forehead against the hand upon the covering, the hand that had so little more to do. Then Arnold spoke.
“You dear woman!” he said. “You dear woman!” She kept her head bowed like that and did not answer. It was his happiest moment. One might say he had lived for this. Her tears fell upon his hand, a kind of baptism for his heart. He spoke again.
“We must bear this,” he panted. “It is—less cruel—than it seems. You don't know how much it is for the best.”
She lifted her wet face. “You mustn't talk,” she faltered.
“What difference—” he did not finish the sentence. His words were too few to waste. He paused and made another effort.
“If this had not happened I would have been—counted—among the unfaithful,” he said. “I know now. I would have abandoned—my post. And gladly—without a regret—for you.”
“Ah!” Hilda cried, with a vivid note of pain. “Would you? I am sorry for that! I am sorry!”
She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of her captive delivered to her in the bonds of death. A fresh pang visited her with the thought that in the mystery of the ordering of things she might have had to do with the forging of those shackles—the price of the year that had been very valuable.