One day, as she came in, she was struck by his appearance. His face was ghastly white, and he had been sitting with his head in his hands as she softly entered. In an instant, as he heard her step, he started up, and advanced with a radiant smile, a smile caused by her approach.
“I'm afraid that you are overtasking yourself,” said Edith, gently, after the usual greeting. “You are here too much. The confinement is too trying. You must take more rest and exercise.”
Dudleigh's face was suffused with a sudden glow of delight.
“It is kind of you to notice it,” said he, earnestly, “but I'm sure you are mistaken. I could do far more if necessary. This is my place, and this is my truest occupation.”
“For that very reason,” said Edith, in tones that showed more concern than she would have cared to acknowledge—“for that very reason you ought to preserve yourself—for his sake. You confine yourself here too much, and take too little rest. I see that you feel it already.”
“I?” said Dudleigh, with a light laugh, whose musical cadence sounded very sweet to Edith, and revealed to her another side of his character very different from that sad and melancholy one which he had thus far shown—“I? Why, you have no idea of my capacity for this sort of thing. Excuse me, Miss Dalton, but it seems absurd to talk of my breaking down under such work as this.”
Edith shook her head.
“You show traces of it,” said she, in a gentle voice, looking away from him, “which common humanity would compel me to notice. You must not do all the work; I must have part of it.”
“You?” exclaimed Dudleigh, with infinite tenderness in his tone. “Do you think that I would allow you to spend any more time here than you now do, or that I would spare myself at the expense of your health? Never! Aside from the fact that your father is so dear to me, there are considerations for you which would lead me to die at my post rather than allow you to have any more trouble.”
There was a fervor in Dudleigh's tones which penetrated to Edith's heart. There was a deep glow in his eyes as he looked at her which Edith did not care to encounter.