“Then tell how the papers and people chattered about your assuming your true name; and how they gabbled when we were married,—and how, on our wedding day, we endowed the hospital ward”—
“Haven’t you made a slip in the pronoun?”
“I’ll box your ears if you even suggest it again; half of the money was what you earned—endowed the hospital ward in memory of our dear father, and how happy we’ve been since.”
“You’ve made a mistake in the last pronoun, I’m certain.”
“You will write it to please me, Donald?”
“Oh, Maizie, I can’t. It’s all too dear to me.”
“Please, Don, try?”
“But”—
She interrupted my protest. “Donald,” she said, the tenderness in her face and voice softening her words, “before knowing that I loved you, you insisted that debt must be paid. Won’t you pay me now, dear?”
“I don’t merely owe you money, Maizie!” I cried. “I owe you everything, and I’m a brute to the most generous of women. Give me the book, dear heart.”