Without a single word, but with a fond impulsive movement, that answered quite well instead, she turned to me, and putting both her little arms around my neck, laid her feverish cheek against mine, and cried, as if her heart were breaking.
'My dearest! what is the matter?'
'I thought you were angry with me, and had gone for good; I though I had worn your patience out at last, and you would never forgive me or come back again. Why did you come back, Georgy?'
'Because I loved you, Dora, and couldn't stay away.'
'Yes, you would, if I had not been sick—mother told me so. I had treated you too shamefully, and wounded you too cruelly; but it hurt me, too, and I deserved to have you not forgive me for all I must have made you suffer. You were proud, but you were very patient, Georgy; how long have I plagued you?'
'Twenty years!'
'Then I have loved you twenty years, and tried not to let you know it. I was very proud, very wicked, very mean, but I am sorry now. I was ashamed to have you or anybody see how much I liked you; but now I don't care, I'll tell the truth before I die. I am glad I am sick, George; for if I don't get well, you will remember what I said, and will have thought better of me; and if I live—'
'My dear Dora, you are to marry me in three weeks, so don't let us talk about dying; you have a little cold, that is all, and I'll give you time to get over it, and recover your voice, and get those ugly blisters off your face.'
'Is it very ugly?' she whispered, hiding it against my shoulder.
'Very ugly, indeed, and I hope it will stay so, till we are married; then we shall have no more flirting with Tom Hayes; I would like to have murdered him yesterday, when—when you wanted me to drown, and not him, Dora.'