“Never mind,” said Cosmo; “it’s all right now. I have you, and it makes me well again all at once. When I see you standing there, looking just as you used, all the time between is shrivelled up to nothing, and the present joins right on to the past. But you look sad, Joan!—I may call you Joan still, mayn’t I?”
“Surely, Cosmo. What else? I haven’t too many to call me Joan!”
“But what makes you look sad?”
“Isn’t it enough to think how I have treated you?”
“You didn’t know it was me,” said Cosmo.
“That is true. But if, as your father taught you, I had done it to Him—”
“Well, there’s one thing, Joan—you’ll do differently another time.”
“I can’t be sure of that, for my very heart grows stupid, living here all alone.”
“Anyhow, you will have trouble enough with me for awhile, fast as your eyes can heal me,” said Cosmo, who began to be aware of a reaction.
Lady Joan’s face flushed with pleasure, but the next moment grew pale again at the thought of how little she could do for him.