He led her to the sofa, and she lay down.
“I thought you’d be so pleased.”
“Of course I am!”
He placed pillows under her, and covered her with a rug—little attentions which were exquisitely touching.
“You don’t know how I struggled,” she said. “I thought I should never get my things on, and then I almost tumbled down the stairs, I was so weak.... But I knew you must be lonely here, and you hate sitting in the bedroom.”
“You oughtn’t to have risked it. It may throw you back,” he replied, gently. He looked at his watch. “You must only stay half-an-hour, and then I shall carry you up to bed.”
Bertha gave a laugh, intending to permit nothing of the sort. It was so comfortable to lie on the sofa, with Edward by her side. She held his hands.
“I simply couldn’t stay in the room any longer. It was so gloomy, with the rain pattering all day on the windows.”
It was one of those days of late summer when the rain seems never ceasing, and the air is filled with the melancholy of nature, already conscious of the near decay.
“I was meaning to come up to you as soon as I’d finished my pipe.”