A couple of gentlemen came running; but the nurse waved them back, and herself caught Carmel and upheld her, in momentary dread of another mental, if not physical, collapse.
But Carmel had come back into the world of consciousness to stay.
Accepting her nurse's support, but giving no sign of waning faculties or imperfect understanding of what she had seen, she spoke quite clearly and with her eyes fixed upon Miss Unwin: "So that is why I am here, away from all my friends.

Was I too ill to be told?
Couldn't you make me know what was happening?
You or the doctors or--or anybody ?" "You were much too ill," protested the nurse, leading her towards the elevator and so by degrees to her room.

"I tried to arouse you after the crisis of your illness had passed; but you seemed to have forgotten everything which took place that night and the doctors warned me not to press you." "And Arthur--poor Arthur, has been the sufferer! Tell me the whole story.
I can bear it," she pleaded.

"I can bear anything but not knowing.

Why should he have fallen under suspicion?
He was not even there.