"I promise."
There is a short pause. It is growing almost dark. The wintry day, sad and weakly from its birth, is dying fast. All the house is silent, hushed, full of expectancy; only a little irrepressible clock in the next room ticks its loudest, as though defying pain or sorrow to affect it in any way.
"Is it your arm?" asks Lilian, gently, his other hand being hidden beneath the sheet, "or——"
"No; two of my ribs, I believe, and my head aches a good deal."
"I am tormenting you with my foolish chatter," rising remorsefully, as though to quit the room.
"No, no," eagerly; "I tell you it makes me easier to see you; it dulls the pain." Slowly, painfully he draws her hand upward to his lips, and kisses it softly. "We are friends again?" he whispers.
"Yes,—always friends," tightening her fingers sympathetically over his. "If"—very earnestly—"you would only try to make up your mind never to speak to me again as you did—last night, I believe another unpleasant word would never pass between us."
"Do not fear," he says, slowly: "I have quite made up my mind. Rather than risk bringing again into your eyes the look I saw there to-day, I would keep silence forever."
Here Dr. Bland puts his head inside the door, and beckons Lilian to withdraw.
"The five minutes are up," he says, warningly, consulting the golden turnip he usually keeps concealed somewhere about his person, though where, so large is it, has been for years a matter of speculation with his numerous patients.