Rosalind looked out through a spot she had rubbed clean on the frozen window-pane, and saw that it was bright starlight. The fog had gone. That boy—he was asleep at the twopenny doss, and the trousers were drying. What a good thing that he should be totally insensitive to atmosphere, as no doubt he was.
The hardest hours for the watcher by a sick-bed are those that
cannot be convinced that they belong to the previous day. One o'clock may be coaxed or bribed easily enough into winking at a pretence that it is only a corollary of twelve; two o'clock protests against it audibly, and every quarter-chime endorses its claim to be to-morrow; three o'clock makes short work of an imposture only a depraved effrontery can endeavour to foist upon it. Rosalind was aware of her unfitness to sit up all night—all this next night—but nursed the pretext that it had not come, and that it was still to-day, until a sense of the morning chill, and something in the way the sound of each belated cab confessed to its own scarcity, convinced her of the uselessness of further effort. Then she surrendered the point, short of the stroke of three, and exchanged posts with the nurse, who promised to call her at once should it seem necessary to do so. Sleep came with a rush, and dreamless oblivion. Then, immediately, the hand of the nurse on her shoulder, and her voice, a sudden shock in the absolute stillness:
"I thought it better to wake you, Mrs. Nightingale. I am so sorry...."
"Oh dear! how long have I slept?" Rosalind's mind leaped through a second of unconsciousness of where she is and what it's all about to a state of intense wakefulness. "What o'clock is it?"
"It's half-past six. I should have left you to have your sleep out, only he wanted you.... Yes, he woke up and asked for you, and then asked again. He's hardly coughed."
"I'll come." Rosalind tried for alacrity, but found she was quite stiff. The fire was only a remnant of red glow that collapsed feebly as the nurse touched it with the poker. It was a case for a couple of little gluey wheels, and a good contribution to the day's fog, already in course of formation, with every grate in London panting to take shares. Rosalind did not wait to see the black column of smoke start for its chimney-pot, but went straight to the patient's bedside.
"Is that Rosey? I can't see very well. Come and sit beside me. I want you." He was speaking more easily than before, so his hearer thought. Could it be a change for the better? She put her finger on the pulse, but it was hard to find. The fever had left him for the time being, but its work was done. It was
wonderful, though, that he should have so much life in him for speech.