“Pshaw! I polished off nearly a whole grouse for my dinner just now, and I have walked several times across the room. I don’t mind being an invalid for three or four days longer, but after that I mean to take the law into my own hands.”
“Why are you in such a dreadful hurry to leave us?” she asked, with some faint signs of pique.
“I am not going to leave you, Gwen. I am going to take you with me wherever I go for the rest of my life.”
She colored up, and looked at him in a timid, frightened sort of way. He put his hand gently over hers.
“I should be sorry to think you did not wish this, Gwen. But, whether or no, it must be now.”
“Why?”
He kissed her hand almost reverentially before he answered:
“This is a cruelly scandalous world. Do you think I should have allowed you to nurse and tend me with such noble devotion unless I had looked upon you as my future wife?”
“I did no harm, surely.”
“On the contrary, you did an immense deal of good—to me. Only finish your work by giving me the dear right to protect and defend you against the whole world.”