"Wonderful things—poor little girl——"
As he brought his eyes back from the fire to her face, he seemed to bring his thoughts back from an uneasy reverie.
"You ought," he said, "to marry——"
The color flamed into the girl's cheeks. "Mother was always saying that, in those last days. But I hated to have her; it seemed so dreadful to talk of marriage—without love. I know she didn't mean it that way, poor darling! She married for love and her life was such a failure. But I couldn't—not just to get married, could I—not just to have some one take care of me?"
He stood up, and thrust his hands in his pockets. "No," he agreed bluffly, "you couldn't, of course."
"And there's never been any one in love with me," was her naive confession, "and I've never been in love, not really——"
He was looking down at her with smiling eyes. "There's plenty of time."
"Yes—that's what I always told mother—but she dreaded to think of me—alone."
The eager, dying woman had said the same thing to the doctor, and it had seemed to him, sometimes, that her burning eyes had begged of him a favor which he could not grant.
For there had always been—Diana!