"Very much. Promise you will remain with me until the—the last, Andrew."
"I won't leave again until you are better," he said, with a peculiar gleam of the eye.
"Then you will stay always."
"Why so?"
"I shall never be better, Andrew."
"Nonsense."
"You always say that, but I know that I am in my last sickness, and—and I want to have a solemn talk with you, Andrew, the last I will have to say to you on earth."
He fidgeted uneasily in his chair, but could not well refuse to listen.
"Nonsense."
But there was no heart in the word. He wished she would hasten her demise. In fact had he thought she was yet alive he would not have so soon returned to the house. It was her dead body he came to see, not a breathing woman, whose claim on him was still paramount to all others.