She sat down on the bed beside him and talked to him soothingly, as if he were a tired child. She told him everything that had occurred during the day, and said she was glad he could rest. She got him a glass of water, then bathed his flushed face with a soft cloth and stroked his hands gently with her cool fingers.
For a long time he watched her as she ministered to him with unfailing gentleness. Her straight shoulders were bent a little and there were lines upon her face; but the ashen gold of her hair and the deep blue of her eyes were the same as when he first loved her—so long ago. He remembered the mad joy that possessed him when his lips first touched hers, and the crushing sorrow of their bereavement, which should have drawn them closer together, but instead had driven them apart. He knew that another man loved her and that she knew it also, yet she had been loyal.
As she went out, he wondered whether another woman in her place would have been true to him. With a swift searching of self he tried to remember some tender word that he had said to her, but it was all blotted out, as if darkness had come between them. For the first time he looked at their life together from her point of view, and shuddered as he saw how she might think of him. Her silence and her patience were evident to him, as they had not been before. Many a time he had seen the blue eyes fill and the sweet mouth tremble at some careless word of his, and often, too, he had seen her shut her teeth together hard when some shaft was meant to sting.
Two days were left—no, only one—for it was night now. One day in which to atone for the countless hurts of the past four years. The dominant self melted into unwonted tenderness as she came back into the room.
"I was gone too long," she said quickly; "but I didn't mean to be."
"Katherine!" he said in a new voice.
"Yes, dear; what is it?" She sat down beside him once more and looked anxiously into his face, fearing that he was ill.
"What is it, dear?" she asked again.
"Nothing," he said huskily; "only that I love you and I want you to forgive me."
"Ralph! Ralph!" she cried, sinking into his arms, "there's nothing to forgive; but I've prayed so long that I might hear you say it!"