"Don't talk so," he entreated. "There will be nothing to see."
"You mustn't work too hard—promise," she whispered.
"No, dear, I won't."
"Percival, will you be good to me?"
"If I can I will indeed. What can I do?"
"I want you to have my money. It is my own, and I have nobody." Sissy remembered the terrible mistake she had once made, and wanted an assurance from his own lips that her gift was accepted.
Percival hesitated for a moment, and even the moment's hesitation alarmed her. It was true, as she said, that she had nobody, and her words opened a golden gateway before Judith and himself. Should he tell her of that double joy and double gratitude? He believed that she would be glad, but it seemed selfish and horrible to talk of love and marriage by that bedside. "I wish you might live to need it all yourself, dear," he answered, and laid his hand softly on hers. The strip of embroidery caught his eye. "What's this?" he said in blank surprise. "And your thimble! Sissy, you mustn't bother yourself about this work now." He would have drawn it gently away.
The fingers closed on it suddenly, and the weak voice panted: "No, Percival. It's mine. That was before we were engaged: you spoilt my other."
"O God!" he said. In a moment all came back to him. He remembered the summer day at Brackenhill—Sissy and he upon the terrace—the work-box upset and the thimble crushed beneath his foot. He remembered her pretty reproaches and their laughter over her enforced idleness. He remembered how he rode into Fordborough and bought that little gold thimble—the first present he ever made her. All his gifts during their brief engagement had been scrupulously returned, but this, as she had said, was given before. And she was dying with it in her hand! She had loved him from first to last.
"Percival, you will take my money?" she pleaded, fearing some incomprehensible scruple.