e he--?"

Kirsteen shook her head; and, slipping her arm round the girl, murmured:
"Courage, Nedda!"

The girl felt fear and love rush up desperately to overwhelm her. She
choked them back, and said quite quietly: "I will. I promise. Only let
me help nurse him!"

Kirsteen nodded. And they sat down to wait.

That quarter of an hour was the longest of her life. To see him thus,
living, yet not living, with the spirit driven from him by a cruel blow,
perhaps never to come back! Curious, how things still got themselves
noticed when all her faculties were centred in gazing at his face. She
knew that it was raining again; heard the swish and drip, and smelled the
cool wet perfume through the scent of the eau de cologne that she had
spilled. She noted her aunt's arm, as it hovered, wetting the bandage;
the veins and rounded whiteness from under the loose blue sleeve slipped
up to the elbow. One of his feet lay close to her at the bed's edge; she
stole her hand beneath the sheet. That foot felt very cold, and she
grasped it tight. If only she could pass life into him through her hot
hand. She heard the ticking of her little travelling-clock, and was
conscious of flies wheeling close up beneath the white ceiling, of how
one by one they darted at each other, making swift zigzags in the air.
And something in her she had not yet known came welling up, softening her
eyes, her face, even the very pose of her young body--the hidden passion
of a motherliness, that yearned so to 'kiss the place,' to make him well,
to nurse and tend, restore and comfort him. And with all her might she
watched the movements of those rounded arms under the blue sleeves--how
firm and exact they were, how soft and quiet and swift, bathing the dark
head! Then from beneath the bandage she caught sight suddenly of his
eyes. And her heart turned sick. Oh, they were not quite closed! As if
he hadn't life enough to close them! She bit into her lip to stop a cry.
It was so terrible to see them without light. Why did not that doctor
come? Over and over and over again within her the prayer turned: Let him
live! Oh, let him live!

The blackbirds out in the orchard were tuning up for evening. It seemed
almost dreadful they should be able to sing like that. All the world was
going on just the same! If he died, the world would have no more light
for her than there was now in his poor eyes--and yet it would go on the
same! How was that possible?