He sat on a chair by the bedside, trying to hold himself in, as it were, with every muscle of his body.
"Philippa, you musn't talk like that."
"If you'll forgive me, Geoff, I'll be content—only promise that you'll accept my legacy."
"Not if you die, I won't."
"Geoff!"
"I'll accept it if you live."
Holding the baby in his arms, he knelt beside the bed. She turned to him. They were face to face. As he began to perceive how she had wasted to a shadow, it did not seem as if he could read enough of the story which was told upon her face. She, in her turn, did not seem as if she could gaze long enough at him.
"Geoffrey, do you really mean that if I live, and get well, really and truly well, you will take me for your wife again—that I shall be to you the same wife that I have always been?"
"Philippa, if one of us is to die for the other, let me be the one to die."
"Geoff, I do believe that if there is anything which must be done, you must be the one to do it. Can't you understand, that if you love to do great things for me, I, also, love to do great things for you. I can't help it. It was that which made me Philip Ayre."