"Did you find the lady? Will she come?"
"She is here."
Turning his head Paul Dudley saw Gertrude standing at the entrance.
He was lying on a low couch against the wall propped up with every article that could be turned to such a use. By his side was an unpainted bench holding a bowl of drink, and a common earthen plate with a piece of hard bread.
When he saw her whom he had won in her girlhood, the recollection of all he had made her suffer rushed to his mind. He gasped out:
"Go away again! I can't endure that you should see my disgrace." But she did not go. She advanced to the side of the bed, and stood looking down upon him with such an expression of sorrow that he hid his face.
"I have come at your bidding," she said in a voice so calm that Edward, who remembered how he had found her almost frantic with excitement, gazed at her in wonder.
"I couldn't die till I had seen you once more."
"How long have you been ill?"
"Ever since the day I met you at the studio. For years I had been trying to forget. In one moment the labor was undone."