"That my presence must be full of peril to you!"
"To me—-how?"
"This illness may be an infectious one."
"I scarcely think so, Denzil; and if it were," she added, with a smile of inexpressible tenderness, "if it were—what then?"
"It might seize on you, darling Rose. Let one of those Kuzzilbash fellows attend me; their lives are of no consequence, while yours——"
"Is of value only to myself."
"And to me, Rose—to me; how unkind!"
He raised himself feebly on his elbow, and gazed at her with eyes expressive of love and admiration.
"Why, Rose, how well you are looking this evening—quite a belle too, or a 'swell,' if one may speak slang," said he, with affected cheerfulness.
"And you, too, Denzil," said she in the same manner, kindly assumed, but with an arrested sob in her throat, for she saw that in reality he was more and more wasted, hollow-cheeked, and large-eyed than ever, and that the tendons of his hands stood sharply out in ridges, distinct to the eye, quite like those of an old man.