"I have nothing to forgive," says Lilian, tremulously, gazing down upon him pityingly through two big violet eyes so overcharged with tears as makes one wonder how they can keep the kindly drops from running down her cheeks. "But you have. Oh, Archie, let me tell you how deeply I deplore having spoken so harshly to you to-day. If"—with a shudder—"you had indeed been killed, I should never have been happy again."
"I was unmanly," says Chesney, holding out his hand feebly for hers, which is instantly given. "I am afraid I almost threatened you. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself."
"Oh, hush! I am sure you are speaking too much; and Dr. Bland says you must not excite yourself. Are you suffering much pain?" very tenderly.
"Not much;" but the drawn expression of his face belies his assertion. "To look at you"—softly—"gives me ease."
"I wonder you don't hate me," says Lilian, in a distressed tone, fighting hard to suppress the nervous sob that is rising so rebelliously in her throat. Almost at this moment—so sorry is she for his hopeless infatuation for her—she wishes he did hate her. "Yet I am not altogether to blame, and I have suffered more than I can tell you since you got that terrible fall!" This assurance is very sweet to him. "When I saw you lying motionless,—when I laid your head upon my knees and tried to call you back to life, and you never answered me, I thought—"
"You!" interrupts he, hastily; "did your hands succor me?"
"Yes," coloring warmly; "though it was very little good I could do you, I was so frightened. You looked so cold,—so still. I thought then, 'suppose it was my cross words had induced him to take that fence?' But"—nervously—"it wasn't: that was a foolish, a conceited thought, with no truth in it."
"Some little truth, I think," sadly. "When you told me 'never to speak to you again,'—you recollect?—there came a strange hard look into your usually kind eyes—" pressing her hand gently to take somewhat from the sting of his words—"that cut me to the heart. Your indifference seemed in that one moment to have turned to hatred, and I think I lost my head a little. Forgive me, sweetheart, if I could not then help thinking that death could not be much worse than life."
"Archie,"—gravely,—"promise me you will never think that again."