"And what if he supplants me some day?" she asked, suddenly serious, and with an old fear reviving.
"Oh, Georgiana!" I cried, kneeling by the bedside and putting my arms around her, "you know that as long as we are in this world I am your lover."
"No longer?" she whispered, drawing me closer.
"Through eternity!"
By-and-by I went out to the strawberry-bed. The season was too backward. None were turning. With bitter disappointment I searched the cold, wet leaves, bending them apart for the sight of as much as one scarlet lobe, that I might take it in to her if only for remembrance of the day. At last I gathered a few perfect leaves and blossoms, and presented them to her in silence on a plate with a waiter and napkin.
She rewarded me with a laugh, and lifted from the plate a spray of blossoms.
"They will be ripe by the time I am well," she said, the sunlight of memory coming out upon her face. Then having touched the wet blossoms with her finger-tips, she dropped them quickly back into the plate.
"How cold they are!" she said, as a shiver ran through her. At the same time she looked quickly at me, her eyes grown dark with dread.
I set the plate hastily down, and she put her hands in mine to warm them.