For a long moment Carol gazed at him in horror. "David," she gasped. "Don't say that. Dear, I will go home if it makes you worse to have me. I will do anything. I only want to help you. But I will be very nice and quiet, like a mouse, and never say a word, and not laugh once, if you take me with you. David, do I make you feel sicker? Does my chatter weary you? I thought I was helping to amuse you."
"Carol, I can't lie like that even to send you away from me. Maybe I ought to, but I can't. Why, sweetheart, you are the only thing left in the world. You are the world to me now. Dear, I said it for your sake, not for mine, Carol, never for mine."
Slowly the smiles struggled through the anguish in her face, and she resumed her kissing of his fingers.
"Silly old goose," she murmured; "big old silly goose. Just because he's a preacher he wants to boss all the time. Can't boss me. I won't be bossed. I like to boss myself. I won't let my beautiful old David go off out there to flirt with the nurses and Indian girls and whoever else is out there. I should say not. I'll stick right along, and whenever a woman turns our way, I'll shout, 'Married! He is mine!'"
[Illustration: "Silly old goose," she murmured.]
David laughed at her passionate discussion to herself.
"Besides, I have been learning a lot of things. I've been talking to the doctor privately when you couldn't hear."
"Indeed!"