“Insufficient organisation and want of method is usually to blame,” Mrs. Dyke was saying, in her precise way. She had begun talking as soon as she sat down, as if resuming a conversation with Emmie that had just been interrupted. “Then praying time is naturally forgotten. Prayers get omitted at the appointed moment, and one rarely if ever squares the account and gets the tally right. But in this book,” and she softly patted the Bible, “all such things are noted. Did I say _this_ book? Pardon me--in a very much larger book, kept by the recording angel, who neither sleeps nor accepts drugs to make him sleep.”
The nurse was standing at a little distance, smiling good-naturedly; and she now asked Emmie if she should remain or go outside the door.
Emmie said she would like to be left alone with Mrs. Dyke.
“All right,” said the nurse, and she nodded significantly. “I shall be just outside the door--and I’ll leave it ajar. Call, if you want me, Miss Verinder.”
“Nurse Gale,” said Mrs. Dyke, quietly but authoritatively, “keep an eye on the clock. Don’t let the proper moment slip by.”
“Oh, do drop your rubbish,” said the nurse, laughing good-humouredly, as she went out into the corridor.
Mrs. Dyke continued to speak of religious matters, until, in a pause, Emmie tried to change the subject.
“Now shall we talk a little about yourself? I want to know if you are comfortable here.”
Mrs. Dyke, after a meditative silence, said, “No, I’m always hungry.”
Emmie, shocked and pained, asked: “Don’t they give you enough to eat?”
“Too much,” said Mrs. Dyke mysteriously. “But I daren’t eat it. They want to poison me”; and she added after another pause that, having defeated this plot for a considerable number of years, she hoped still to get the better of them.
Then it was as if of a sudden she had been moved by some strange glimmer of intelligence or intuition with regard to Emmie. She looked at her searchingly with a changed expression in the eyes, and shrinking from her on the sofa, spoke loudly. “Are you an enemy or a friend?”
“Of course she is,” said the nurse briskly. At the sound of the raised voice she had immediately come into the room. “And a very kind friend, too--to have come all the way from London to see you.”