nightgown, and I felt her breath upon the naked skin beneath - she sighed and said, ''So many times I lay in that dull room at Mrs Pugh''s and thought of you and Alice in your little bed beside the sea. Was it just like this, being with her?''
I didn''t answer her. I, too, was thinking back to that little bed. How hard it had been, having to lie next to slumbering Alice, my heart and my head all filled with Kitty. How much harder would it be to have Kitty herself beside me, so close and so unknowing! It would be a torture. I thought: I shall
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pack my trunk tomorrow. I shall get up very early and catch the first train back . . .
Kitty spoke on, not minding my silence. ''You and Alice,'' she was saying again. ''Do you know, Nan, how jealous I was . . . ?''
I swallowed. ''Jealous?'' The word sounded terrible in the darkness.
''Yes, I -'' She seemed to hesitate; then, ''You see,'' she went on, ''I never had a sister like other girls did . . .'' She let go of my hand, and placed her arm over my middle, curling her fingers around the hollow of my waist. ''But we''re like sisters now, aren''t we Nan? You''ll be a sister to me ?won''t you?''
I patted her shoulder stiffly. Then I turned my face away -quite dazed, with mixed relief and disappointment. I said, ''Oh yes, Kitty,'' and she squeezed me tighter.
Then she slept, and her head and arm grew slack and heavy.