I could not keep my careful distance from Enid while she was wringing out a cloth for my forehead, and she could not keep hers from me while doing it.

The need went both ways, though I only understood the second direction later: that an old woman who has been alone in a big house for four years, with no one to tend and no one to fuss over, is starving for exactly the thing a sick lodger provides, which is someone to take care of.

I thought she was being kind to me.

She was.