Now and again one of the nurses fed him with milk and brandy, and after a time the intolerable torture of his cramped arms and legs dulled into a deadly numbness.
Once, watching from the foot of the bed, Kitty asked him softly: "Can you stand it, Peter ?" He looked up at her and smiled.
"Of course," he answered, as though there were no question in the matter.
It was only when the early dawn was peering in at the window that at last Nan stirred in his arms and opened her eyes--eyes which held once more the blessed light of reason.

Then in a voice hardly audible for weakness, but from which the wild, delirious note had gone, she had spoken.
"Why, Peter, you've got some grey hairs!" And Peter, forcing a smile to his drawn lips, had answered with his joking remark about old age creeping on.

Then, letting the nurse take her from his arms, he had toppled over on to the floor, lying prone while the second nurse rubbed his limbs and the agony of returning life coursed like a blazing fire through his veins.

Afterwards, with the tears running down her face, Kitty had helped him out of the room.
Nan's recovery had been slow, and Peter had been compelled to abandon his intention to see no more of her.

She seemed restless and uneasy if he failed to visit her at least once a day, and throughout those long weeks of convalescence he had learned anew the same self-sacrifice and chivalry of spirit which had carried him forward to the utter renunciation he had made that summer night in King Arthur's Castle.
There was little enough in the fragile figure, lying day after day on a couch, to rouse a man's passion.