He didn't want to account for her coming to him. It was natural and
beautiful that she should come.
Then, as she stepped into the lighted passage, he saw that she was
bareheaded and that her eyelashes were parted and gathered into little
wet points.
He took her arm gently and led her into his study and shut the door.
They faced each other there.
"I say--is anything wrong?"
"I thought you were ill."
She hadn't grasped the absurdity of it yet. She was still under the
spell of the illusion.
"I? Ill? Good heavens, no!"
"They told me in the village you'd got diphtheria. And I came to know
if it was true. It _isn't_ true?"
He smiled; an odd little embarrassed smile; almost as if he were
owning that it was or had been true.
"_Is_ it?" she persisted as he went on smiling.
"Of course it isn't."
She frowned as if she were annoyed with him for not being ill.
"Then what was that other man here for?"
"Harker? Oh, he just took my place for a day or two while I had a sore
throat."
"You _had_ a throat then?"
Thus she accused him.
"And you _did_ sit up for three nights with Ned Alderson's baby?"
She defied him to deny it.
"That's nothing. Anybody would. I had to."
"And--you saved the baby?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Some thing or other pulled
the little beggar through."
"And you might have got it?"
"I might but I didn't."
"You _did_ get a throat.
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