‘“I won’t distress you further now.”
‘“Much thanks . . . I am glad to see you looking better, Monsieur; I mean you are looking better.”
‘“Ah, yes. I am improving. I walk in the sun every day.”
‘And almost every day she saw him—sometimes nodding stiffly only, sometimes exchanging formal civilities. “You are not gone yet,” she said on one of these occasions.
‘“No. At present I don’t think of going without you.”
‘“But you find it uncomfortable here?”
‘“Somewhat. So when will you have pity on me?”
‘She shook her head and went on her way. Yet she was a little moved. “He did it on principle,” she would murmur. “He had no animosity towards them, and profited nothing!”
‘She wondered how he lived. It was evident that he could not be so poor as she had thought; his pretended poverty might be to escape notice. She could not tell, but she knew that she was dangerously interested in him.
‘And he still mended, till his thin, pale face became more full and firm. As he mended she had to meet that request of his, advanced with even stronger insistency.