"I'm getting on for twenty-three," I informed the girl, when I had made her sit down beside my bed.
"And I'm nearly twenty-six!"
"You look twenty-one."
"I'm afraid I look lots of things that I'm not," she sighed, in a voice too gloomy for the half-joking words. "Oh, now that I'm trying to speak, I don't know how to begin, or how far to go! I must confess one thing frankly: and that is, I can't tell you everything."
"Tell me what you want to tell: not a word more."
"Thank you. I thought you'd say that. Well, suppose you loved a man who was very ill—so ill he couldn't possibly get well, and he begged you to marry him—because then you might be in the same house till the end, and he could die happily with you near: what would you do?"
"If I loved him enough, I would marry him the very first minute I could," was my prompt answer.
"I do love him enough!" she exclaimed.
"But you hesitate?"
"Yes, because——Oh, Elizabeth, there's a terrible obstacle."