She was leaning against the couch of robes, resting on the piled support of the skins. In the pause after his words she slowly drew herself upright, and with her mouth slightly open inhaled a deep breath. Her eyes remained fixed on him, gleaming from the shadow of her brows, and their expression, combined with the amaze of the dropped underlip, gave her a look of wild attention.
"Why?" she said. The word came obstructed and she repeated it.
"I want you to marry David here to-night."
The doctor's watch on a box at the bed head ticked loudly in the silence. They looked at each other unconscious of the length of the pause. Death on the one hand, life pressing for its due on the other, were the only facts they recognized. Hostility, not to the man but to the idea, drove the amazement from her face and hardened its softness to stone.
"Here, to-night?" she said, her comprehension stimulated by an automatic repetition of his words.
"Yes. I may not be able to understand tomorrow."
She moved her head, her glance touching the watch, the lantern, then dropping to the hand curled round her own. It seemed symbolic of the will against which hers was rising in combat. She made an involuntary effort to withdraw her fingers but his closed tighter on them.
"Why?" she whispered again.
"Some one must take care of you. I can't leave you alone."
She answered with stiffened lips: "There's Daddy John."