"No, indeed! I have regretted it ever since."
"How much did they give you?" "A tremendous lot—three hundred and fifty guineas."
"The swindlers! They were worth two thousand."
"What!" She was thunderstruck. "You gave me a necklace worth two thousand guineas?"
"I only wish you'd let me give you a score or two at the same price, on condition that you sold them for three-fifty whenever you needed a little cash."
She was quite upset by this remark, and what had given rise to it. Impulsively—too impulsively, considering how weak he was—she kissed his damp forehead, and rushed weeping from his sight.
In the hot evening, while the trained nurse had her tea at grateful leisure in the housekeeper's room, Deb again took that nurse's place. She sat by the pillow of the patient, leaning against it, holding his hand in hers. Only the sound of the cruel north wind and his more cruel breathing disturbed the stillness that enveloped them. She hoped he was sleeping, until he spoke suddenly in a way that showed him only too wide awake.
"Debbie," he said, "if I was quite sure I would not get well this time, I should put that question to you again."
"What question, dear?" she queried softly.
"The question I asked you just before you left Redford."