"I cannot," he answered.
"Cannot!" she said, and she stooped nearer, but the dimness hid his face.
"No; and something within me seems to be failing."
There was that in the trembling frame and altered voice that impressed her strangely. What was failing? Had the springs of life been so strained by suffering that there was danger lest they should break?
Emily did not know; but everything seemed to change for her at that moment. It was little to her that he should discover her love for him now; but he would not, or, if he did, he was past caring, and he had been almost forgotten by those about him, though his danger was as great as that of any. He had been left to endure alone. She lifted the cup to his lips, and thought of nothing, and felt nothing, but the one supreme desire to console and strengthen.
"She will die, Emily," he found voice enough to say when the cup was empty; "and I cannot survive her."
"Yes, you can; but I hope she will not die, dear John. Why should she live so long, to die after all?"
She leaned toward him, and, putting her arms about him, supported his head on her shoulder, and held it there with her hand. At least that once her love demanded of her that she should draw near. She should not die; perhaps there was a long life before her; perhaps this might be the only moment she might have to look back to, when she had consoled and satisfied her unheeded heart.
"Have you so soon forgotten hope?" she said as she withdrew her arms.
"I thought I had."