Dr North Proposes.
As Horace North took the hand of Leo Salis in his, it was to find it soft and cool and moist—very different from the burning palm he had so often held a few months since. It was without a tremble, but it sent a thrill through him; and with eyes flashing and revelling in his new joy, he was about to speak, when she half threw herself back in her chair with a movement of resignation which came upon him like a douche.
He knew it so well. He read it and understood it as plainly as if she had spoken. It was the patient waiting for him to feel her pulse.
“I thought you had given me up,” she said lightly.
“Given you up—you whom I love!”
Those were the words he wanted to say, but they would not come now after the damping he had received, and involuntarily his fingers glided slowly to her wrist, and he held them pressed against the calmly-beating pulse, gazing down at her half-averted eyes the while.
There was no coquetry, no playful manner; she was as calm and resigned as any patient he had ever visited, and yet, time back, she had clung to him, gazed passionately into his eyes, and whispered of her love.
Was it delirium?
He could not bring himself to say; but even if it were, she must at heart have loved him, and in her abnormal state have confessed what she would sooner have died than said when well.
The moments glided by, and he still held her wrist in the most professional manner, till, apparently surprised, she raised her eyebrows, opened her languid eyes, and looked up at him.