“Molly,” said he, taking her terrified face between his hands and holding her eyes to his until the pallid face of fear became a flush of shyness: “Molly, you are not frightened?”
She buried her face on his neck:
“I have been a mistake—a large mistake, all through,” she said.
She was seized with a violent fit of coughing.
The big man put her gently into the bed—the air was nipping, spite of the room’s warmth.
“No, Moll, you always overstate a case.” He smiled sadly. “You even admire my verses.”
She laughed in spite of herself—gladly; but fear lurked in her eyes. Her mood turned to sudden terror. She leaped up, and held him with fearful hands—the sweat stood in cold beads upon her flesh:
“For God’s sake, Eustace; don’t go away again——”
“No, Moll—I will never go away again.”
He soothed her, racked with the torture of violent coughing, her veins standing out like cords upon the torn meagre body; and as the struggle ran down he set her gently back amongst the pillows and warm bedclothes.