"Oh, Dick, and you never told me!" said Nell reproachfully.
"I don't tell you everything, little girl," he remarked severely; "and I won't tell you any more now unless you come on and give me something to eat. See here, now; I'll walk in front, and promise not to look round——"
Nell, blushing painfully, looked at Drake appealingly, and he seized Dick by the arm and marched him off in the direction of the lodge, Nell following more slowly.
As they entered, the nurse came down from Falconer's room, and Nell inquired after him anxiously.
"He is much better, miss," said the nurse; "and he asked me to say that he should be glad if you and his lordship would go up to him."
Drake nodded, and he followed Nell up the stairs.
Falconer was sitting up, leaning back against a pile of pillows; and he greeted them with a smile—the half-sad, half-patiently cynical smile of the old days in Beaumont Buildings—the smile which served as a mask to hide the tenderness of a noble nature.
Nell came into the room shyly, with the sadness of the self-reproach which was born of the knowledge that her happiness had been gained at the cost of this man who loved her with a love as great as Drake's; but Drake came up to the bed boldly, and held out his hand.
"We have come—to thank you, Falconer," he said, in the tone with which one man acknowledges his debt to another. "No, not to thank you, for that's impossible. Some things are beyond thanks, and this that you have done is one of them. You have brought happiness where there was nothing but misery and despair. Some day I will tell you the story of our separation; but that must wait. Now I can only try and express my gratitude——"
He stammered and broke down; for with Falconer's eloquent eyes upon him, he realized the extent of the man's self-sacrifice, and it seemed to him that any attempt to express his own gratitude was worse than absolute silence. Can you thank a man for the gift of your life?