id not seem to have heard.

"Are you sure you're not cold, dear?"

"No, aunt."

Their hands touched.

"But you are. Put that rug over you. That one at the end of the bed.
I'm quiet now. I think perhaps I shall sleep a little."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Perhaps turn the lamp down, dear. That's it. A little more. Now, if
you'd just raise my pillow. There, behind my head. That's the way! Why,
what a good nurse you are!"

Maggie, as tenderly as she could, turned the pillow, patted it, placed
it beneath her aunt's head. She was close against her aunt's face, and
the eyes seemed suddenly so fierce and urgent, so insistent and
powerful, that seeing them was like the discovery of some blazing fire
in an empty house. Most of all, they were terrified eyes. Maggie went
back to her chair. After that, she sat there during the slow evolution
of Eternity; Eternity unrolled itself before her, on and on and on,
grey limitless mist and space, comfortless, lifeless, hopeless. She had
been for many weeks leading a thoroughly unwholesome life in that old
house with those old women. She did not herself know how unhealthy it
had been, but she knew that she missed the wide fields and downs of
Glebeshire, the winds that blew from the sea round Borhedden, the air
that swirled and raced up and down the little stony strata of St.
Dreot. Now she had been kept indoors, had had no fun of any kind, had
looked forward to Mr. Magnus as her chief diversion. Then Martin had
come, and suddenly she had seen how dangerously her life was hemming
her in. She was losing courage. She would soon be afraid to speak for
herself at all; she would soon ...

In a panic at these thoughts, and feeling as though some one was trying
to push her down into a coffin whilst she was still alive, she began
hurriedly to speak, although she did not know whether her aunt were
asleep or no.

"I think I ought to tell you, Aunt Anne, that I wrote a letter some
days ago and posted it myself. It was to a lady who knew Father once in
Glebeshire, and she said that if ever I wanted help I was to write to
her, and so--although perhaps I oughtn't to have done it without asking
you first, still I was afraid you mightn't want me to--so I sent it. I
wouldn't like to hurt your feelings, Aunt Anne, and it isn't that I'm
not happy with you and Aunt Elizabeth, but I ought to be earning my own
living, oughtn't I? And I've only got my three hundred pounds, haven't
I? I'm not compl