"Have you, indeed? Very well, I've nothing to do but listen—'tis not for me to boss the gardener."
She looked about with uneasy eyes, finding it very difficult to begin her attack. "How much you've improved the place," she remarked, irrelevantly, her voice betraying the deepest agitation.
He looked at her white face in astonishment. "How are ye, the day, miss?"
"I'm better, thank you, but a little out of breath—I walked too fast, I think."
"Does the altitude make your heart jump, too?" he asked, solicitously.
"No, my trouble is all in my mind—I mean my lungs," she answered. Then, with a ghastly attempt at sprightliness, she added: "Now let's have a nice long talk about symptoms—it's so comforting. How are you feeling these days?"
Haney answered with unwonted dejection. "I'm not so well to-day, worse luck. This is me day for thinkin' the doctors are right. They all agree that me heart's overworked up here." His dejection was really due to Bertha's moody silence.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Do they think you may live safely at sea-level?"
"They say so. Me own feeling is that the climate is not to blame. 'Tis age. I'm like a hollow-hearted tree, ready to fall with the first puff of ill wind. I've never been a man since that devil blew me to pieces."
She put her right hand upon his arm. "Is it not a shame that you and I should stand in the way of two fine, wholesome, young people—shutting them off from happiness?"