"What do you mean—by that?" said Aunt Jane. Her fingers seemed a little afraid of the blue slip in her lap.
"Just that!" His face was quiet with the happiness shining in it—ready to break through at a word. "Just that. If some other woman comes to the House of Mercy, she is to have it—otherwise I take it back."
Aunt Jane's fingers abandoned the check. It slipped to the floor.
He came over and picked it up and placed it on the table beside her, and bent a little to her. "I want to give you a larger home, Jane. I want to give you all I have.... Won't you come and live with me?"
"Oh—dear!" said Aunt Jane.
"That's what I meant." He was smiling, but the shadow crossed his face.
"I can't!" said Aunt Jane. She pushed the check from her, and opened the little bag, searching—with half-blinded fingers for the other.
"I can't take 'em!" she said.... "And we do need the wing for contagion—" Her fingers had found the slip and she took it out longingly, and laid it beside the other on the table and glanced up at him with a little, tremulous shake. "I can't take it—if you were offering it to me just because you thought you were—in love with me!"
She looked at it regretfully. "I did hope it wasn't that!" she said softly.