"Why should n't I have done it?" he asked her, "... when death was so easy and living so hard? You alone stopped me from doing it. The thought of you and the sight of you, and the hope of you. Often and often I was looking at you ... when you thought I was asleep."
"Sometimes I saw you," said Pam.
"... And making up my mind whether to die ... or risk living ... for your sake. But I never could die ... because of you. And once, when you had been a long while gone ... I said to myself: 'How easy to slip off now ... before she comes back' ... and just as I was wondering whether there would be time ... you came in, and stooped over me and kissed me. How could I die after that? Once I made up my mind to kiss you back ... but my lips had n't strength. You saw them move, and asked me if I wanted a drink, and I said 'Yes'; but I did n't. And you cried over me, too."
"I was sorry for you," said Pam. "I wanted you to get better."
"Are n't you sorry for me now?" he asked. "... Now that my mind is ill ... as my body was then?"
The terrible earnestness of his love troubled her. Love before she had witnessed in plenty, but never love like this. It was as though she stood with clasped hands before some burning homestead that her own unintending fingers had fired, and saw the fierce wind fan the flames, and heard the cry for succor from within ... and could do nothing. Oh, it was horrible! For a while they looked at each other and said nothing, for each feared speaking; he, lest he might divert Pam's answer; Pam, because she had no answer to divert.
"Well?" he said at length. "Have you nothing to say to me?"
Pam only shook her head. What had she to say, and how could she say it when her own great heart was hammering away like a stone-mason in the place where her voice should have been.
"Not even a word?" he said, with a broken sob. "Won't you say ... you 'll try and care for me ... if I can make you? Is it too much to ask that?"
Pam put her hands to her face.