Katherine dismissed Mrs. Rogers and took up her post at Vincent's bedside. He was still sleeping, with his face turned towards hers as she sat. And as she looked at him she had hope. She was still young, and it was inconceivable to her that anything she loved so much should die. It was not, she pleaded, as if she had been happy, as if her love had any chance of a return, or had asked for anything better than to spend itself like this continually.
And as she sat on watching, it seemed to her that it was better as it was. Better that love should live by immortal things, by things intangible, invisible, by pity, by faith, by hope, breaking little by little every link with earth. She tried to make herself believe this pleasant theory, as she had tried many a day and many a night before, her heart having nothing else to warm it but the fire of its own sacrifice. It was better as it was.
And yet, she said again, in this last six weeks he had been hers in a way in which he could be no other woman's, not even Audrey's. He was hers by her days of service, her nights of watching, by all that had gone before, by her part in his new life. After all, that could never be undone. She was almost happy.
Ted took her place for an hour in the evening, but that was all the rest she gave herself. She meant to sit up with Vincent again to-night.
"Do you know, Kathy, your eyes are very pretty."
It had struck midnight, and Vincent had been awake and looking at her for the last two minutes. She smiled and blushed, and that made her whole face look pretty too. And as he looked into her eyes the blindness fell from his own, and he saw as a dying man sometimes does see.
"Come here, Sis." He stretched out his arm on the counterpane, and as she knelt beside him he put back her hair from her forehead.
"I wonder if I was wrong when I thought you couldn't love anybody?"
Then she knew that he was dying.
"Yes, very wrong indeed. For—I loved you then, Vincent." Her face was transfigured as she spoke. He had to be spared all sudden emotions, but she knew that her confession would do him no harm. And indeed he took it quite calmly, without the least change of pulse.