"There, dear," she said. "Give me the valise. Now sit down on the packing box there. Are you tired? You had better put your hat on. It is full of draughts here, now that all the furniture and curtains are out."
"No, no. I'm all right, old girl. Is the hack there yet?"
"Not yet. You're sure you're not tired?" she insisted. "You had a pretty bad siege of it, you know, and this is only the first week you've been up. You remember how the doctor—"
"I've had too good a nurse," he answered, stroking her hand, "not to be fine as a fiddle by now. You must be tired yourself, Laura. Why, for whole days there—and nights, too, they tell me—you never left the room."
She shook her head, as though dismissing the subject.
"I wonder," she said, sitting down upon a smaller packing-box and clasping a knee in her hands, "I wonder what the West will be like. Do you know I think I am going to like it, Curtis?"
"It will be starting in all over again, old girl," he said, with a warning shake of his head. "Pretty hard at first, I'm afraid."
She laughed an almost contemptuous note.
"Hard! Now?" She took his hand and laid it to her cheek.
"By all the rules you ought to hate me," he began. "What have I done for you but hurt you and, at last, bring you to—"