"Have I?" The words barely formed. "How fortunate."
He waited for her eyes to close.
They started to. Her lashes came down by half. Her jaw eased. The hand that had been working at the coverlet went still.
Then her chin lifted by an inch. Her eyes opened—not all the way; she could not manage all the way—and went past him to the wall, to the chair, to the bag.
Her hand worked again on the coverlet. Two fingers closed and opened, twice. He watched the small motion and did not understand it.
Her lashes dropped. He waited for her breath to lengthen. Instead her throat worked, dry, around nothing. Her head turned by a fraction toward him.
"Miss Bennet."
She did not answer at once. Her tongue moved against her lip. He saw her gather some small amount of air, and then her eyes opened wider, by force, and found the chair again before theyfound him.
He looked at the chair himself. He could see nothing on it but the bag.
Her hand opened and closed on the coverlet. Once, twice, three times. The work of it was minute, as if her fingers themselves were testing whether they could still answer her. Her chest rose by a careful inch. Her eyes were closing again.
She fought them open.
The fight was visible in the line of her jaw. In the breath that scraped out. In the small toss of her head against the pillow, as a horse will refuse a bit.
"Miss Bennet."
He had not meant to say her name twice. The room was quiet enough without it.
She did not turn to him. Her eyes were on the chair.
She should have been asleep. She was not asleep. She was fighting against something he could not see, and she would not yield.
His hand had gone to the coverlet. He had not put it there consciously. It was beside hers, not touching, and he could not have explained the reaching.
He waited. "You have done with the broth, and with the trial of my company. There is nothing further required of you tonight."
That brought her eyes to his. They were slow to move, and slow to find him, but they came. Her throat worked. He saw her marshal the small machinery of speech.
"Your conversation"—she found another breath—"has been the greater trial."
His hand closed on the coverlet and opened again. He bent nearer.
"Ungrateful woman. I save your life and am repaid with criticism."
Her hand opened and closed once more. Her eyes started to close. She fought them up. They went to the chair.
Whatever was on the chair, she was guarding. He could not tell what required guarding.
"Then we are quits, for you dragged me from a lake and I bled on your coat."
“I have another coat.”
“I am glad of it.”
The last word scarcely formed. Sleep, or something perilously near it, was already drawing her under. But the bowl was half empty, colour had not worsened, and the dry crack in her lips had lessened after the broth. It would have to suffice.
He rose. For some time, he stood looking down at her, at the narrow face against the linen, at the dark lashes on a cheek too white, at the hand lying outside the coverlet because she had not strength enough to move it farther. A few hours earlier, she had been walkingon the mere with both boots on her feet and opinions ready in her mouth. Now her life hung by means so poor and mean they might have shamed a stable yard.
He took up her hand and laid it more carefully beneath the blanket.
