"It—it almost seems as though I had married you under false pretences, doesn't it? But the doctors and everybody were so certain I was to die that I thought so too. And now—I'm going to live, it seems."
She was silent, and slowly his hand went out to her again, and slowly hers went to meet it, but though her fingers clasped and twined, thrilling in mute passion to his touch, she came no nearer, but watched him from the shadow of her hair with great troubled eyes.
"Dear," he said, very humbly, "you do—love me still, don't you?"
"More than ever."
"Then you're not—sorry to be my wife?"
"No—ah, no, no!" she whispered, "never that!"
"Then, dear, won't you—will you kiss me?" Seeing she hesitated, he sank back on his pillow and laughed a little ruefully. "I forgot these confounded whiskers—I must look an unholy object. Patterson shall shave me, and then perhaps—"
But sudden and warm and soft her arms were about him, and her eyes, troubled no longer, gazed into his, brimful of yearning tenderness.
"Oh, my dear, my dear," she murmured, quick and passionate, "as if I should ever care how you looked as long as you were—just you. My dear, my dear, you have come back to me from the very gates of death because I—I—"
"Because you nursed me so tenderly!"