Please let me wait." Lady Ashbridge's room was on the floor above, and Michael ran up the intervening stairs three at a time.

He knocked and entered and wondered why he had been sent for, for she was sitting quietly on her sofa near the window.

But he noticed that Nurse Baker stood very close to her.
Otherwise there was nothing that was in any way out of the ordinary.
"And here he is," said the nurse reassuringly as he entered.
Lady Ashbridge turned towards the door as Michael came in, and when he met her eyes he knew why he had been sent for, why at this moment Sir James was being summoned.

For she looked at him not with the clouded eyes of affection, not with the mother-spirit striving to break through the shrouding trouble of her brain, but with eyes of blank non-recognition.

She saw him with the bodily organs of her vision, but the picture of him was conveyed no further: there was a blank wall behind her eyes.
Michael did not hesitate.