Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/208

198 by his bed-side, I watched him and waited on him for several hours, showing myself as little as possible, and only speaking when necessary, and then not above my breath. At first he addressed me as the nurse, but, on my crossing the room to draw up the window-blinds, in obedience to his directions, he said—

"No, it isn't nurse; it's Alice. Stay with me do! that old hag will be the death of me."

"I mean to stay with you," said I. And after that, he would call me Alice—or some other name almost equally repugnant to my feelings. I forced myself to endure it for a while, fearing a contradiction might disturb him too much: but when, having asked for a glass of water, while I held it to his lips, he murmured "Thanks, dearest!"—I could not help distinctly observing—"You would not say so if you knew me," intending to follow that up with another declaration of my identity, but he merely muttered an incoherent reply, so I dropped it again, till some time after, when, as