"He's not laid up in bed," she replied.
Then, with her quivering, exquisite gentleness, she touched his bandaged hand.
"I'm awfully sorry he hurt you so," she said. "I know you'll hate me for it."
"Why should I?" he replied coldly.
She took up his bandaged hand and kissed it quickly, then she looked him long and beseechingly in the eyes: or the one eye. Somehow she didn't seem to see his caricature of a face.
"Don't hate me for it," she pleaded, still watching him with that strange, pleading, watchful look.
The flame leapt in his bowels, and came into his eyes. And another flame as she, catching the change in his eyes, softened her look and smiled subtly, suddenly taking his wrist in a passionate, secret grasp. He felt the hot blood suffusing him like new life.
"Good-bye!" she said, looking back at him as she disappeared.
And when she had gone, he remembered the watchfulness in her eyes, the cat-like watchfulness at the back of all her winsome tenderness. There it was, like the devil. And he turned his face to the wall, to his Lord, and two smarting tears came under his eyes as if they were acid.
The next day Mary came bringing his pap. She was not going to be kept away any longer. And she would come as a ministering angel.