"Good-evening," she said, in her calm, clear voice. "I heard you out here, and thought you might like to know that, thanks to your treatment in the first instance, and such care as I have been able since to give it, my hand is once more in working order."
"You are kind to come out and tell me so," I said. "I had no hope of seeing you to-night. How long is it since you arrived?"
"About two hours," she replied, carelessly.
"And you have been nearly three weeks away!"
"Have I?" said she, leaning her cheek upon her hand, and looking up dreamily into the night. "I did not count the days."
"That proves you passed them happily," I said; not without some secret bitterness.
"Happily!" she echoed. "What is happiness?"
"A word that we all translate differently," I replied.
"And your own reading of it?" she said, interrogatively.
I hesitated.