“Don't deceive yourself, my friend,” she interrupted him remorselessly. “See, come to the window. Now look at me—and then don't talk any more twaddle about care and good nursing!”
She had drawn him towards the window, till they were standing together in the full blaze of the setting sun. Then she turned and faced him—a gaunt wreck of splendid womanhood, her fingers working nervously, whilst her too brilliant eyes, burning in their grey, sunken, sockets, searched his face curiously.
“You've worn better than I have,” she observed at last, breaking the silence with a short laugh, “you must be—let me see—fifty. While I'm barely thirty-one—and I look forty—and the rest.”
Suddenly he reached out and gathered her thin, restless hands into his, holding them in a kind, firm clasp.
“Oh, my dear!” he said sadly. “Is there nothing I can do?”
“Yes,” she answered steadily. “There is. And it's to ask you if you will do it that I sent for you. Do you suppose”—she swallowed, battling with the tremor in her voice—“that I wanted you to see me—as I am now? It was months—months before I could bring myself to send you the little pearl ring.”
He stooped and kissed one of the hands he held.
“Dear, foolish woman! You would always be—just Pauline—to me.”
Her eyes softened suddenly.
“So you never married, after all?”