've been waiting for you," George said in a husky whisper.

"But I didn't say I would come."

She could hear him breathing close to her. "I can't see your eyes.
You've got them shut. What's the matter? You're not crying?"

She opened them, and they were the colour of the night, grey and yet
black, but they were not wet.

"I've been waiting for you," he said again, and once more she answered,
"I didn't say I would come."

"I was coming to the door to ask about Mrs. Caniper," he went on, still
speaking huskily and very low.

"Were you?"

"You wouldn't have liked that!"

"She is better." Emptiness was becoming peopled, and she remembered
Mildred Caniper in bed, and the nurse smiling when she meant to be
sympathetically sad, and Miriam, pitiful under scolding, but George was
only the large figure that blocked the future: he was not real, though
he talked and must be answered.

"I was coming to ask: do you hear?"

"You know now."

"But there's more. Who's the old chap who drove up tonight? Your uncle,
isn't it?"

Her mind, which had lain securely in her body out of reach of hurt, was
slowly being drawn into full consciousness; but he had to repeat his
words before she answered them, and then she spoke with a haughtiness to
which Miriam had accustomed him.

"So you have been watching?"

"Why not?" he asked defiantly. "I've got to watch. Besides," he became
clumsy, shy, and humble, "I was waiting to see you."

"I'm here."

"But you're--you're like a dead thing. That night, in my room, you were
alive enough. You sat there, with your mouth open, a little--I could see
your teeth, and your eyes--they shone."

His words were like touches, and they distressed her into movement, into
a desire to run from him.

"I'm going in," she said.

"Not yet."

"I must."

He was hovering on the edge of sentences which had their risk: she could
feel that he wished to claim her but dared not, lest she should refuse
his claim. He found a miserable kind of safety in staying on the brink,
yet he made one venture.

"There are things we've got to talk about."

"But not tonight."

"You'll say that every night."

"There's never really any need to talk about anything," she said.

He stammered, "But--you're going to marry me. I must make--make
arrangements."

She had her first real scorn of him. He was afraid of her, and she
despised him for it, yet she saw that she must keep him so. She could
hardly bring herself to s