"Agnes, would it grieve you if I were to die?"
The question came in a remarkably soft and tender tone from Dr. Brunnow's lips--mildness and tenderness not being among that gentleman's ordinary characteristics. He received no answer, but the sobs grew louder, more passionate. Taking the girl's hands, he drew them gently from her face all deluged in tears, and went on:
"I think I have betrayed so much to you, that you need not hesitate to confess those tears are falling for me. It is only within the last few days, since I have been under your care, that I have known how matters really stood with me, or, may I say, with us both?"
The girl had sunk on her knees by the bedside and buried her face in the pillows. For all reply she wept more bitterly and despairingly than ever, but she offered no resistance when the sick man put his arm round her and drew her gently to him. And then followed a wonderful event--Max Brunnow, throwing overboard his programme with its many clauses, launched into a fervent, heart-stirring declaration of love, a declaration which had but one defect--in form and vivacity of expression it was such as no dying lips could have uttered.
Poor Agnes was far too agitated to think of this; and moreover Dr. Berndt had so impressed upon her the utter hopelessness of the case, that she dared not admit to herself even the possibility of recovery. She took the patient's animation for the excitement of fever, and truly believed that she was witnessing the last transient flicker of life's flame--the gleam which precedes its final extinction.
"I shall never forget you," she sobbed. "What in life I never should have owned to you, now in the presence of death I may confess--my love is endless, unspeakable; it will reach beyond the grave. It is no sin to think of a departed one, and to send messages on the wings of prayer--this I shall do daily, when the quiet convent walls have shut me in for ever."
Earnest and touching as were her accents, this confession hardly satisfied Max. He had not the smallest wish to be worshipped as a departed spirit, and communications with the other world were by no means to his taste.
"It would be so, in case of my death," he said; "but what if I should live, after all?" Agnes raised her dark, tearful eyes, with an expression of the utmost perplexity. She had evidently not thought of this. "I believe that would not quite suit you," cried Max, resentfully.
"Not suit me? Oh, how can you say so! Why," cried the young girl, with a burst of feeling, "I would willingly give my life to save yours, if that were possible!"
"You shall not be asked to give your life," declared Max, whose conscience smote him as he saw how true and deep was the poor girl's grief. "All you will have to give up is a foolish idea which would make us both miserable were you to cling to it. Agnes, you are mistaken in thinking my condition a hopeless one. I have, in fact, hardly been in danger at all; and this morning any doubt as to my recovery has altogether disappeared. If I left you in error a quarter of an hour longer than was necessary, I did so because I was determined, at any cost, to obtain from you an avowal of your affection. As a convalescent, I well knew I should sigh for it in vain, but now you have spoken your confession, and I shall hold you to your word. It will be quite useless to go back--to try and recall what you have said. You may refuse me a hundred times, it will make no difference. In spite of all and everything, you will be my wife."