In the shadowy half-light of the room Shiela halted at a sign from the nurse; the doctor glanced up, nodding almost imperceptibly as the girl’s eyes fell upon the bed.

How she did it—­what instinct moved her, what unsuspected reserve of courage prompted her, she never understood; but looking into the dreadful eyes of death itself there in the sombre shadows of the bed, she smiled with a little gesture of gay recognition, then, turning, passed from the room.

“Did he know you?” motioned Constance.

“I don’t know—­I don’t know....  I think he was—­dying—­before he saw me—­”

She was shuddering so violently that Constance could scarcely hold her, scarcely guide her down the stairs, across the lawn toward her own house.  The doctor overtook and passed them on his way to his own quarters, but he only bowed very pleasantly, and would have gone on except for the soft appeal of Constance.

“Miss Palliser,” he said, “I don’t know—­if you want the truth.  You know all that I do; he is conscious—­or was.  I expect he will be, at intervals, now.  This young lady behaved admirably—­admirably!  The thing to do is to wait.”

He glanced at Shiela, hesitated, then: 

“Would it be any comfort to learn that he knew you?”

“Yes....  Thank you.”

The doctor nodded and said in a hearty voice:  “Oh, we’ve got to pull him through somehow.  That’s what I’m here for.”  And he went away briskly across the lawn.

“What are you going to do?” asked Constance in a low voice.

“I don’t know; write to my father, I think.”

“You ought not to sit up after such a journey.”

“Do you suppose I could sleep to-night?”

Constance drew her into her arms; the girl clung to her, head hidden on her breast.

“Shiela, Shiela,” she murmured, “you can always come to me.  Always, always!—­for Garry’s sake....  Listen, child:  I do not understand your tragedy—­his and yours—­I only know you loved each other....  Love—­and a boy’s strange ways in love have always been to me a mystery—­a sad one, Shiela....  For once upon a time—­there was a boy—­and never in all my life another.  Dear, we women are all born mothers to men—­and from birth to death our heritage is motherhood—­grief for those of us who bear—­sadness for us who shall never bear—­mothers to sorrow everyone....  Do you love him?”

“Yes.”

“That is forbidden you, now.”

“It was forbidden me from the first; yet, when I saw him I loved him.  What was I to do?”

Constance waited, but the girl had fallen silent.

“Is there more you wish to tell me?”

“No more.”

She bent and kissed the cold cheek on her shoulder.

“Don’t sit up, child.  If there is any reason for waking you I will come myself.”

“Thank you.”

So they parted, Constance to seek her room and lie down partly dressed; Shiela to the new quarters still strange and abhorrent to her.