This was too much for Larry. He dropped on his knees beside her and put his arms around the quivering little figure.
"Don't, Ruth," he implored. "Don't cry and don't—don't wish you were dead. I—I can't stand it."
There was a tap at the door. Larry got to his feet in guilty haste and went to the door of the stateroom.
"It is time for Mrs. Annersley's medicine," announced the nurse impersonally, entering and going over to the wash stand for a glass.
The white linen back safely turned, Larry gave one swift look at Ruth and bolted, shutting the door behind him. The nurse turned to look at the patient whose face was still hidden in the pillow and then her gaze traveled meditatively toward the door out of which the young doctor had shot so precipitately. Larry had forgotten that there was a mirror over the wash stand and that nurses, however impersonal, are still women with eyes in their heads.
"H—m," reflected the onlooker. "I wouldn't have thought he was that kind. You never can tell about men, especially doctors. I wish him joy falling in love with a woman who doesn't know whether or not she has a husband. Your tablets, Mrs. Annersley," she added aloud.
* * * * *
"Larry, I think your Ruth is the dearest thing I ever laid eyes on," declared Tony next day to her brother. "Her name ought to be Titania. I'm not very big myself, but I feel like an Amazon beside her. And her laugh is the sweetest thing—so soft and silvery, like little bells. But she doesn't laugh much, does she? Poor little thing!"
"She is awfully up against it," said Larry with troubled eyes. "She can't stop trying to remember. It is a regular obsession with her. And she is very shy and sensitive and afraid of strangers."
"She doesn't look at you as if you were a stranger. She adores you."