“Oh, Emarine!” he said, still without lifting his head. “I love yuh—I love yuh! I’ve suffered—oh, to think o’ you layin’ here sick, night after night fer a whole month, an’ me not here to do things fer yuh. I’ve laid awake imaginin’ that yuh wanted a fresh drink an’ c’u’dn’t make anybody hear; or that yuh wanted a cool cloth on your forrid, or a little jell-water, or somethin’. I’ve got up ’n the middle o’ the night an’ come an’ stood out at your gate tell I’d see a shado’ on the curt’n an’ know yuh wa’n’t alone.... Oh, Emarine, Emarine!”
She moved her hand; it touched his throat and curved itself there, diffidently. He threw up his head and looked at her. A rush of passionate, startled joy stung through him like needles, filling his throat. He trembled strongly. Then his arms were about her and he had gathered her up against his breast; their lips were shaking together, after their long separation, in those kisses but one of which is worth a lifetime of all other kisses.
Presently he laid her back very gently upon her pillow, and still knelt looking at her with his hand on her brow. “I’ve tired yuh,” he said, with earnest self-reproach. “I won’t do ’t ag’in, Emarine—I promise. When I looked ’n your eyes an’ see that yuh’d fergive me; when I felt your hand slip ’round my neck, like it ust to, an’ like I’ve b’en starvin’ to feel it fer a month, Emarine—I c’u’dn’t help it, nohow; but I won’t do ’t ag’in. Oh, to think that I’ve got choo back ag’in!”
He laid his head down, still keeping his arm thrown, lightly and tenderly as a mother’s, over her.
The sick girl looked at him. Her face settled into a look of stubbornness; the exaltation that had transfigured it a moment before was gone. “You’ll have to promise me,” she said, “about your mother, you know. I’ll have to be first.”
“Yuh shall be, Emarine.”
“You’ll have to promise that if there’s any knucklin’-down, she’ll do ’t, an’ not me.”
He moved uneasily. “Oh, don’t choo worry, Emarine. It’ll be all right.”
“Well, I want it settled now. You’ll have to promise solemn that you’ll stand by ev’rything I do, an’ let me have things my way. If you don’t, you can go back the way you come. But I know you’ll keep your word if you promise.”
“Yes,” he said, “I will.”