“Put up the screen!” she murmured, and in its shelter drew her husband’s head to her bosom and pressed her lips to his hair.
But he, surprised into indiscretion, murmured: “I thought thou wast dying.”
A beautiful light came into the gray eyes.
“Thy heart told thee right, Herzel, my life, I was dying for a sight of thee.”
“But the matron wrote to me pressingly,” he blurted out.
He felt her breast heave convulsively under his face; with her hands she thrust him away.
“God’s fool that I am—I should have known; to-day is not visiting day. They have compassion on me—they see my sorrows—it is public talk.”
His pulse seemed to stop. “They have talked to thee of me,” he faltered.
“I did not ask their pity. But they saw how I suffered—one cannot hide one’s heart.”
“They have no right to talk,” he muttered, in sulky trepidation.