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 Rh "I don't want to settle off to sleep just yet, nurse, I should like to read a little. There is a packet of letters..."

"No! No! I wouldn't hear of such a thing. Starting reading at ten o'clock. What will you be wanting to do next?"

"It would not do me any harm," I answered irritably. "I've told you before it does me more harm to be contradicted every time I make a suggestion."

"Well, you won't get me to help you to commit suicide. Night is the time for sleep, and you've had your codein."

"The codein does not send me to sleep, it only soothes and quiets me."

"All the more reason you should not wake yourself up by any old letters." She argued, and I... At the end I was too tired and out of humour to insist. I made up my mind to do without a nurse as soon as possible, and in the meantime not to argue but to circumvent her. At this time, before Ella went, I was getting up every day for a few hours, lying on the couch by the window. I tested my strength and found I could walk from bed to sofa, from sofa to easy-chair without nurse's arm, if I made the effort.

"You will take care of yourself?" were Ella's last words, and I promised impatiently.

"I don't so much mind leaving you alone now,