"Wheel me close to the window," she whispered. "I want to feel the sunshine that I shall not see again." Tears streamed from the sightless eyes, still beautiful, for the injury had left them undisfigured, though the life was gone from them.
Mrs. Mountford's wish was carried out, and the couch placed in the deep bay-window. The sun shone straight in upon her, and made the tear-drops glisten on her wan face. She thanked the nurse and her maid with a smile which brought moisture to their eyes. She had been very gentle and patient through her illness, for pain, which in some cases causes irritation, had in hers been overmastered by remorse, and all the old petulant ways were gone.
"You can leave me now, and tell Mr. Mountford I am ready for him to come," she added.
"I am here, darling," replied her husband.
"I might have known," she whispered, as he bent over her, and drawing his head down, she kissed him tenderly again and again.
He seated himself so as to be on a level with her, but again she drew his head to her breast and held him in a close embrace. Hitherto, neither of them had spoken to the other of that terrible day, but now Mrs. Mountford whispered—
"Can you ever forgive me, Kenneth? I have been longing to ask you, ever since I knew what my wickedness had brought on you. I say you, darling husband, for though I know you will place my loss of sight and helplessness as worst of all, because I have to bear them through all my life, I am sure you have suffered even more than I have. Besides, bodily pain is not the worst part, though you have borne that along with me. I understand something about what sympathy means, when such love goes with it; for whenever our little one was ill, every pain she had was a double stab to me. And once when you were ill, my husband, it was the same or worse. To see those we love suffer is so hard. It would be bliss to bear the pain, if by doing this one could spare them. If such a poor, weak, wilful creature as I am can feel in this way, what must you have endured for my sake?"
Mrs. Mountford spoke softly and slowly, still holding her husband clasped closely to her.
He could not answer, and she knew why. She passed her slender fingers over his face, and felt the tears that he could not keep back, and knew, by the heaving of his breast, that he was too much overcome by emotion to utter a word in reply.
She waited patiently for a while, dried the tears as they fell, and kissed his hair, even, as his; head lay close to her. She could not, and never would, see how it had changed of late. Where only a few silver threads had been, it was now all grey.