"You are not well."
"Getting old."
"Nonsense, not old enough to be so tired."
He looked wistfully at her for a moment, and then began to talk of other things, but she was not to be put off, and returned to the attack a day or two afterwards. After a little fencing, he told her—
"I have been to a—a doctor. I am not quite the thing; in fact, he has found out what I suspected myself, that there is something serious, and something, Frances, that cannot be cured."
There was dead silence. The woman caught her breath. Few moments in her life had been so intense with pain as this. She looked at her old friend with a white, still face.
"I am glad you have told me; but is it—is it quite hopeless? Don't tell me, Philip, that you are going to be taken from us?"
There was a sharp ring of anguish in her voice that she did not try to keep back.
The Colonel rose from his seat, paced the room irresolutely, then turned to her.
"I was about to wish that my time was short here, Frances, but I will not be a coward. I have always enjoyed such good health, and have led such an active life, that a sick-room is abhorrent to me. But if it is to be my lot, I shall be willing to go through it. I may live a few years, the doctor says, but I shall always be an invalid. I have done with health and strength and activity; and sickness and weakness and pain, Frances, are formidable foes to confront. There! I ask your pardon for letting you see me in this mood, but I have always been to you with my troubles, and I could not keep this back from you."