"Not die?" he questioned.
"No, no! For my sake you must get better," and she looked eagerly and earnestly into his eyes, as though she would compel assent to her words.
"Why for your sake?" he asked slowly and musingly.
"Why? Oh, William, do you not understand? Can you not see——"
"Surely—surely," he said, a great light breaking over his face, "you cannot mean that—that——"
"But I do mean it," she interrupted. "How could I mean anything else?"
He half rose in bed, as if inspired with new strength, then lay back again with a weary and long-drawn sigh. She rose quickly to her feet, and bent over him with a little cry. A pallor so deathly stole over his face that she thought he was dying.
After a few moments he rallied again, and smiled reassuringly. Then the nurse came back into the room.
"You will come again?" he whispered, holding out his hand.
She answered him with a smile, and then hurried down the stairs.