“Are you sufferin’ so very much, girl?” he asked.
And she, reading his thoughts as she had always done, smiled again as she answered:
“Not very much, dear heart. Hardly at all, now that you’re here. Oh, it’s good to have you with me again! I was afraid you mightn’t—”
She stopped. He thought he knew why, and made answer:
“Thought I mightn’t come, hey? Why, girl, if you had a smashed finger an’ sent for me to come clear across the world to kiss it an’ make it well, I’d come. An’ you know I would. An’ you’re really better since I got here?”
“Much, much better.”
“I knew it!” he declared, in triumph. “I knew you’d come ’round all right. I had a hunch you would. An’ my hunches don’t ever go wrong. I’ve sent for the best doctors in America. If there’s better doctors in Yurrup I’ll send for those, too. An’, among ’em they’ll have you fit as a fiddle in no time. You’ll get well, for me, darling. You’ll get well! You’ll get well!”
He struck his hand on the bedpost to drive home the prophecy.
“Yes, dear,” she whispered, faint with a new spasm of pain as the jar of his hand’s impact shook the bed.
“Oh!” he laughed, nervously, “I was so scared, girl. So scared! It seemed like the world was tumblin’ about my ears. If I’d come here an’ found—”