“I—I am almost gone,” gasped Topham. “My heart is stopping. I—I am not afraid—but—it is so lonely. I have no one. Could you—kiss me—good-bye?”
He was halted by a swift movement. She had raised his head and he swallowed a draft of something that sent a liquid thrill through him. In a trice his feeling changed from that of a sinking, suffocating soul to that of a man whose life is rushing back into him. The nurse was smiling into his eyes.
“You were going to say,” she murmured musically, “that you will be faithful to the end.”
Topham opened his eyes wider. That face—the ripe lips—the clear, burning eyes! They were those of the girl at the quay—of the nurse at the transfer hospital—no, of the nurse who had bent over him when he first regained consciousness here—yes, of all three. A deep flush overspread his pallid face.
“You said you would be faithful to the end,” she repeated roguishly. He groped for an answer.
“In my mind,” he confessed, “I did not know you. But in my heart I must have known you all the time.”
Then she kissed him again.
ARLETTA
By Margaret Ade
It was on a Monday morning in August that Miss Backbay climbed the brownstone steps to the rooming-house conducted by Mrs. Edward Southend in Massachusetts Avenue, Boston. Miss Backbay was short, stout, and sixty, and her face was flushed and scowling.