The soft, thin fingers were enveloped in his big strong palm, and then his eyes filled. A lump came up into his throat and prevented him from speaking. Never in all his life before had he seemed so little master of himself.
Then a low, sweet voice broke the silence, and all his self-possession came back to him.
"I wanted to thank you for saving my life."
He dropped his eyes slowly, and a hot wave swept over him from head to foot.
"Dr. Barrow says if you had not found me when you did I should have died." And she looked at him as if expecting an answer. But he did not reply or even raise his head.
"And you carried me such a long distance, too," she went on, after a pause; "and I heard Dr. Barrow tell the nurse that you bound up my head splendidly."
"You were not much to carry," he said, raising his head suddenly. "But--but you are less now." And his voice sank almost to a whisper.
"I have grown very thin," she said, with a wan smile. "But the doctor says I shall get all right again with time and patience."
"I hoped you would have got well much sooner," he said, looking timidly into her face. "I have suffered a good deal during your illness."
"You?" she questioned, raising her eyebrows. "Why?"
"Because if I had not been surly and boorish, the accident would not have happened. If you had died, I should never have forgiven myself."
"No, no; it was not your fault at all," she said quickly. "I have thought a good deal about it while I have been ill, and I have learnt some things that I might never have learnt any other way, and I see now that--that----" And she dropped her eyes to hide the moisture that had suddenly gathered. "I see now that it was very wrong of me to speak to you as I did."
"You were reared to command," he said, ready in a moment to champion her cause, "and I ought to have considered that. Besides, it isn't a man's place to be rude to a girl--I beg your pardon, miss, I mean to a----"
"No, no," she interrupted, with a laugh; "don't alter the word, please. If I feel almost an old woman now, I was only a girl then. How much we may live in a few weeks! Don't you think so?"
"You have found that out, have you?" he questioned. And a troubled look came into his eyes.
"You see, lying in bed, day after day and week after week, gives one time to think----"