“You’ve gone off shockingly!”
“Yes, I know I have,” said Annie, quite calmly, putting her finger on the line she had come to as she looked up. “But you had better not talk now,” she added, coaxingly; “it is very bad when you are still so weak.”
Down went her head again; but, with characteristic tact, he insisted on continuing:
“I don’t think I ever saw anybody so much altered. I suppose that is why you have come back. You found nobody else would admire you any longer, so it was time to come and saddle yourself on your husband.”
Instead of being stung to the quick by this reproach, which was meant to be very severe, Annie had some difficulty in repressing an impulse to laugh; but she only said, soothingly:
“It is all right, Harry; I am going away again as soon as ever you are well. I’ll turn away so”—and she moved the chair round to face the fire—“and then you won’t be annoyed by the sight of my ugly face.”
She went on reading, or pretending to read, for some minutes, until her husband’s voice once more interrupted her.
“A fine lot of affection you seem to have for me now you have come back! I dare say you wish I was dead all the time. Never even asking me how I feel! What did you come at all for?”
Annie put down her book again, and came toward the bed.
“I didn’t think it was good for you to talk just at first. I thought, if I sat quite quietly, you would go to sleep again.”