Chapter 41

It was long before the dropped eyelids could lift and hold themselves
open for more than a few seconds and long before the eyes wore their old
clear look. The depths of the collapse after prolonged tortures of
strain and fear was such as demanded a fierce and unceasing fight of
skill and unswerving determination on the part of both doctors and
nurses. There were hours when what seemed to be strange, deathly drops
into abysses of space struck terror into most of those who stood by
looking on. But Nurse Jones always believed and so did Coombe.

"You needn't send for his mother yet," she said without flinching. "You
and I know something the others don't know, Lord Coombe. That child and
her baby are holding him back though they don't know anything about it."

It revealed itself to him that her interest in things occult and
apparently unexplained by material processes had during the last few
years intensely absorbed her in private. Her feeling, though intense,
was intelligent and her processes of argument were often convincing. He
became willing to answer her questions because he felt sure of her. He
lent her the books he had been reading and in her hard-earned hours of
leisure she plunged deep into them.

"Perhaps I read sometimes when I ought to be sleeping, but it rests
me--I tell you it _rests_ me. I'm finding out that there's strength
outside of all this and you can draw on it. It's there waiting," she
said. "Everybody will know about its being there--in course of time."

"But the time seems long," said Coombe.

Concerning the dream she had many interesting theories. She was at first
disturbed and puzzled because it had stopped. She was anxious to find
out whether it had come back again, but, like Lord Coombe, she realised
that Robin's apparent calm must on no account be disturbed. If her
health-giving serenity could be sustained for a certain length of time,
the gates of Heaven would open to her. But at first Nurse Jones asked
herself and Lord Coombe some troubled questions.

It came about at length that she appeared one night, in the room where
their first private talk had taken place and she had presented herself
on her way to bed, because she had something special to say.

"It came to me when I awakened this morning as if it had been told to me
in the night. Things often seem to come that way. Do you remember, Lord
Coombe, that she said they only talked about happy things?"

"Yes. She said it several times," Coombe answered.

"Do you remember that he never told her where he came from? And she knew
that she must not ask questions? How _could_ he have told her of that
hell--how could he?"