“Do you know what I want to say to you?” he said gravely.
“What you wish to say?”
“Yes. There! I cannot speak to you in set terms, but do you think I could know you as I have known, have watched by you, and tended you through all this terrible illness, with any other result? Leo, I love you! Will you be my wife?”
“Dr North!”
Yes; her mind must be a blank. There was so much genuine surprise in her tone, such a look of astonishment in her eyes, that he knew it now without doubt, and his emotion choked him for the moment, so great was the disappointment and despair her tone evoked.
“You wonder at it, but why should you? Listen to me, Leo—”
“No, no; stop—stop! You are too hasty. Let me think.”
She put her hands to her temples, and looked at him half-wonderingly, half amusedly, but to him it seemed as if she were trying to recall something, and he once more caught her hand.
“You will listen to me. You will give me your promise, Leo—dear Leo! You seem to belong to me, for I have, as it were, brought you back from the dead. Tell me you will be my wife.”
She gave him a quick, keen glance that was as if full of horror and revolt, but he could not interpret it, and drew her hand towards his breast. Then, with a quick movement, and a pitying look at the man for whom she felt something approaching gratitude: