For a long while that evening I knelt by his bed without either of us saying a word. Then at last he spoke:
"It won't matter much what things go wrong with me in life if only I can always have you to say good night to me."
"You might easily never have had me to say good night to you again, Little Yeogh Wough. I very nearly died about a month ago. You didn't believe it, of course, because I am so strong. But it was very cruel of you to send that telegram."
"I didn't send it. Another boy sent it. That doesn't make things any better, I know, but it happened that something went wrong at the house just then and I couldn't leave, and yet I wanted to send the telegram at once, and so I asked a boy who was going into the town to send it. He said he could remember it and didn't want it written out, and then he forgot it and put words of his own. There, now you know how it was."
"Why didn't you tell me this before, Little Yeogh Wough? It would have saved me so much suffering. You see, when a selfish woman, such as I've always been, loves unselfishly, it isn't a joy but a pain—one long aching pain all the time——"
I broke off and he patted my cheek with one of his hands that were now so big and strong.
"This doesn't look very promising for my going into the Indian Civil Service," he said, half playfully. "Oh, by the way, a week before I came away from school a fellow who had been studying up palmistry looked at my hands and told me I'm going to die a violent death by a bullet or the explosion of a shell. So that looks like India, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It looks like sedition. If you gave your life like that for your country, it would be terrible, but I should be proud. Oh, if only I could one day see you another John Nicholson!"
"I believe you'd rather have me another Nicholson or Rhodes than another Shakespeare."