Miss Knowlton's mouth was twisted. She yearned to be of heroic service and at the same time she desperately hoped for the return of Dr. Salter. She had sat often by the bedsides of reviving women who had to be told that no living joy had come from hours of purgatory; and it was after many experiences of this sort that she had become an attendant in a doctor's office. She waited for Stephen's return to consciousness with even more frightful apprehensions.
Another hour passed and she was still sitting in the same place, when the first numbing suspicion of the truth dawned upon Stephen. If his hand was there and sound, why this agony in his other shoulder? He turned his unpillowed head slowly and looked down, but the covers hid his body. He tried to lift his left hand as he had lifted his right, but he could not move it. It was doubtless tightly bandaged; it was necessary in such cases to be thorough and Salter and his assistants cut deep. He closed his eyes to shut out thought.
But thought was not to be permanently shut out. With a sudden impulse he reached across his body, but he reached vaguely and met only Miss Knowlton's strong grasp.
"I'd try to lie perfectly still," she advised earnestly.
He left his hand in hers. It was comfortable to feel a human touch and it suited a cunning plan to pretend to yield. Her mouth twisted again, but he made no comment upon it. He closed his eyes and after a while withdrew his hand gently and slipped it back under the covers. Miss Knowlton had an eagle eye and he must move with caution. He smiled feebly--she furthered his scheme by drawing up the covers to his neck. He moved his hand little by little, and touched with the tips of his fingers after long and exhausting effort his left shoulder.
His first emotion was, incongruously, one of amusement.
"They've taken it off," he said aloud as though his circumvention of watchfulness was the only important fact.
Miss Knowlton ignored his cleverness. "I'd try to get to sleep now." In the effort to prevent her lips from twisting she looked at him with a threatening gaze. If Dr. Salter would only come! Suddenly he caught her hand and held it in a weak and desperate grip. She closed both her own upon it.