It was the room of the house which, catching the morning sun, was best
suited for an invalid. So she had given it to him with an eagerness
behind which was the feeling that somehow it made him more of the inner
circle of her own life; for apart from every other feeling she had, there
was in her a deep spirit of comradeship belonging to far-off times when
her life was that of the open road, the hillside and the vale. In those
days no man was a stranger; all belonged.
To meet, and greet, and pass was the hourly event, but the meeting and
the greeting had in it the familiarity of a common wandering, the
sympathy of the homeless. Had Ingolby been less to her than he was, there
would still have been the comradeship which made her the great creature
she was fast becoming. It was odd that, as Ingolby became thinner and
thinner, and ever more wan, she, in spite of her ceaseless nursing,
appeared to thrive physically. She had even slightly increased the
fulness of her figure. The velvet of her cheeks had grown richer, and her
eyes deeper with warm fire. It was as though she flourished on giving: as
though a hundred nerves of being and feeling had opened up within her and
had expanded her life like some fine flower.
Gazing at Ingolby now there was a great hungering desire in her heart.
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