"An' not go gettin' all worked up an' excited?"
"I will not!"
"Why then, perhaps ten minutes wouldn't hurt."
"God bless you, Mrs. Trapes!"
Left alone, he tried to sit up, and finding this strangely difficult, examined his hands and arms, scowling to find himself so weak. Then he clapped hand to bony jaw and was shocked to feel thereon a growth of ragged beard, and then—she was before him. Fresh from her slumbers she came, wrapped in a scanty kimono whose thin, clinging folds revealed more of her shapely beauty than he had ever seen as she hurried across the wide chamber.
"Hermione," he said, and reached out his hands to her. And his voice was no longer the feeble echo it had been; the hand that clasped hers, though still thin and weak, thrilled her anew with its masterful touch. Because of all this, her words of tender greeting remained unspoken, the arms which had been eager to cradle his helplessness crossed themselves on her bosom; she became aware of naked ankles and of bare feet thrust into bedroom slippers and needs must hide them, and the better to do so, sank upon the bed, her feet tucked under her. So she sat, just beyond his reach, and, conscious of scanty draperies, shook her shining hair about her, veiling herself in its glory.
"Hermione," he said unsteadily, "I—I never knew quite how beautiful you were—and we—we are married, it seems!"
"Yes," she said softly.
"And now I'm—I'm afraid I'm going to—live!"
"Afraid?"