Suddenly she looks at the quiet figure. His eyes are fixed on her face. He has been watching her.
"Will you ever forgive me, Lauraine?" he says faintly. "I have been such a brute, and you—I always said you were too good a woman. It must have needed an angel's heart to do what you have done."
"It was nothing—nothing," she says hurriedly. "Sick-nursing was always my forte, you know. Besides, I only did my duty."
"Your duty!" he echoes, with something of the old bitterness. "It is well for you that you have so strong a sense of it. I have forgotten what the word means."
She is silent. There is a long pause. After a while he speaks again.
"I have ruined your life, I know, and now it is too late—too late to make amends. Still, the best amends I could make would be to free you from myself—and that will soon be the case, Lauraine. Hush! Do you suppose I believe what those fools said to-day—that a man cannot tell when his end is near? I shall not plague you any longer—and you may be happy—yet."
"Don't say that," entreats Lauraine, kneeling beside him, and taking the hand he extends so feebly. "There is every hope now; the worst is over. You are only weak, and that makes you dispirited about yourself."
He shakes his head. "I know; I know. Promise me one thing. You will not leave me; you will stay with me to the end. Last night I had a dream. I thought I was alone—all alone, and it was all black and dark, and you had left me; and look where I would there were fiends grinning at me, and all my past sins seemed a burning fire upon my soul. It was horrible. Bad as I am, and have been, say you won't forsake me till the end, Lauraine; it is some comfort to have a good woman's prayers. I can feel that at last."
"I will not leave you, do not fear," Lauraine assures him earnestly.
"But promise, child," he says restlessly, "promise."