“I’m sorry,” Hilda said.  As she moved into the room she detached her eyes from Arnold’s, feeling as she did so that it was like tearing something.

“There was so little to do,” Sister Margaret said.  “Surgeon-Major Wills saw at once where the mischief lay.  Nothing disagreeable was necessary, was it, Mr. Arnold?  Perfect quiet, perfect rest—­that’s an easy prescription to take.”  She had rather prominent, very blue eyes, and an aquiline nose and a small firm mouth, and her pink cheeks were beginning to be a little pendulous with age.  Hilda gazed at her silently, noting about her authority and her flowing draperies something classical.  Was she like one of the Fates?  She approached the bed to do something to the pillow—­Hilda had an impulse to push her away with the cry, “It is not time yet—­Atropos!”

“I must go now for an hour or so,” the Sister went on.  “That poor creature in Number 6 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.  In obedience to it 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 regret—­for you.”

“Ah!” Hilda cried with a vivid note of pain, “I am sorry!  I am sorry!”