Taylor smiled and looked at Miss Harlan. “I knew you were here,” he said; “I’ve felt you near me. It was mighty comforting, and I want to thank you for it. There were times when I must have shot off my mouth a heap. If I said anything I shouldn’t have said, I’m a whole lot sorry. And I’m asking your pardon.”
“You didn’t,” she said, her eyes eloquent with joy over the improvement in him.
“Well, then, I’m going to sleep.” He raised his right hand—his good one—and waved it gayly at them—and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER XXIII—A WORLD-OLD LONGING
Looking back upon the long period of Taylor’s convalescence, Marion Harlan could easily understand why she had surrendered to the patient.
In the first place, she had liked Taylor from the very beginning—even when she had affected to ridicule him on the train coming toward Dawes. She had known all along that she had liked him, and on that morning when she had visited the Arrow to ask about her father Taylor had woven a magnetic spell about her.
That meeting and the succeeding ones had merely strengthened her liking for him. But the inevitable intimacy between nurse and patient during several long weeks of convalescence had wrought havoc with her heart.
Taylor’s unfailing patience and good humor had been another factor in bringing about her surrender. It was hard for her to believe that he had fought a desperate battle which had resulted in the death of three men and the wounding of Carrington and himself; for there were no savage impulses or passions gleaming in the eyes that followed her every movement while she had been busy in the sickroom for some weeks. Nor could she see any lingering threat in them, promising more violence upon his recovery. He seemed to have forgotten that there had been a fight, and during the weeks that she had been close to him he had not even mentioned it. He had been content, it seemed, to lounge in a chair and listen to her while she read, to watch her; and there had been times when she had seen a glow in his eyes that told her things that she longed to hear him say.
The girl’s surrender had not been conveyed to Taylor in words, though she was certain he knew of it; for the signs of it must have been visible, since she could feel the blushes in her cheeks at times when a word or a look passing between them was eloquent with the proof of her aroused emotions.
It was on a morning about six weeks following the incident of the shooting that she and Taylor had walked to the river. Upon a huge flat rock near the edge of a slight promontory they seated themselves, Taylor turned slightly, so that she had only a profile view of him.