He looked at her for a while.
“Well, yes, there is,” he answered presently. “There’s one thing I wished to ask you, Bella. You’ve been an awfully good friend to me, and now I want you more than ever.”
“I’ll do anything you wish,” she said, with beating heart.
“I’m afraid it’s very selfish. But I don’t want you to go away this winter—in case anything happened. You know my sister died three months after the first symptoms were noticed.”
“I’d do so much more for you than that.”
She placed her hands on his shoulders, and gazed into his blue, sad eyes; searchingly she scrutinized his face, paler than ever and more exquisitely transparent, and his soft mouth, tremulous still with the horror of death. She remembered his mouth and his eyes when they were merry with boyish laughter and his cheeks flushed with excitement at his own gay rhetoric. Then she looked down.
“I wonder if you could bring yourself to marry me.”
Although her eyes were turned away, she knew that he blushed deeply, and hopelessly, full of shame, she dropped her hands. It seemed an intolerable time before he answered.
“I’m not so selfish as all that,” he whispered, his voice trembling.
“Yes, I was afraid the thought would disgust you,” she said, with a sob.