“It’s not that!” she cried wildly. “He’ll die without my seeing him, and Dick says he’s nothing to me, and—and he’s everything!” and her sobs died away into low, hopeless weeping, which wrung the heart of the man before her. She did not think of him until she felt an unsteady touch on her hair, and looking up at him, saw that not only his hands but his very lips were trembling.
“Don’t cry so,” he said hoarsely; “you break my heart. Then you are engaged to him? I never dreamt of this.”
“No, I’m not—but it’s my own fault. He asked me long ago—and I told him it could never be—and I was so horrid that—he never asked me again. And now they won’t let me go to him—and I wanted—just to tell him—before he died—that—that——”
“That he might die happy? No, no, I am in earnest,” as Mabel threw him a glance of reproach. “I could die happy in his case.”
“Oh, how wicked—how mean—I am, to say all this to you! And I have treated you so badly— What can you think of me?”
“What should I think but that you are the woman I hoped to shield from every breath of trouble, and now you are in this sorrow, and I can do nothing?”
“Oh, but you can!” cried Mabel impulsively. “It’s no good speaking to Dick, but Dr Tighe will listen to you, and you can ask him to let me help to nurse him.”
“I have no doubt he will be willing to do that—or if it is not possible, I am sure he will promise to call you if any change for the worse occurs.”
“Oh, you won’t believe in me even now! You don’t think I could be brave even for him. If it was to do him good, I could——”
“Your seeing him now could do him no possible good, and the sight would haunt you for ever. I think you don’t quite trust me, do you? Try to think of me as a friend, as one who would a thousand times rather see you happy with the man you loved than unhappy with himself. And perhaps”—he hesitated a little—“you may like to know that you have lifted a weight from my mind to-night. I confess it seemed to me a cruel thing when you broke off our engagement without any special reason, but now I know that you love some one else, I feel it was quite natural and right.”