As he got stronger he would call out more and more cheerfully to her through the open door, and ask her how she was getting on, and she would struggle to call back laughing answers.

It had been a mistake to put them next to each other, and I blamed myself for having done so, but it was too late to change then.

All we could do was to beg her not to exhaust herself, and to let us, when he called out, tell him she was asleep.

But the thought of not answering him or calling to him made her so wretched that it seemed safer to let her have her way.
"Her one anxiety was that he should not know how weak she was.

'It will worry him so,' she would say; 'he is such an old fidget over me.