e was talking he answered her:

"To that other one over in the corner. Don't you see him? He is waiting
for me till the fever eats me up. There's a lot of me to eat, I'm so big
and awkward, overgrown--that's what Daisy said. You know Daisy, don't
you? a dainty little creature, with such delicacy of sight and touch!
She doesn't like red hair; she said so when we thought the man in the
corner was waiting for her, and she doesn't like my freckled face and
hands--big hands, she said they were, and yet how they have worked like
horses for her! Oh, Daisy! Daisy! I have loved her ever since she was a
child, and I drew her to school on my sled and cut her doll's head off
to tease her. Take me quick, please, out of her sight, where my freckled
face won't offend her."

He was talking now to that other one, the man in the corner, who, like
some grim sentinel, stood there day and night, while Daisy kept her
tireless watch and Tom talked on and on--never to her--but always to the
other one, the man in the corner, whom he begged to take him away.

"Bring out your boat," he would say. "It's time we were off, for the
tide is at its height, and the river is running so fast. I thought once
it would take Daisy, but it left her, and I am glad. When I am fairly
over and there's nothing but my big, freckled hulk left, cover my face
and don't let her look at me, though I'll be white then, not red. Oh,
Daisy, Daisy, my darling, you hurt me so cruelly!"

Those were terrible days for Daisy, but she never flinched from her
post, and stood resolutely between the sick man and that other one in
the corner until the latter seemed to waver a little; his shadow was
not so black, his presence so all-pervading, and there was hope for Tom.
His reason came back at last, and the fever left him, but weak as a
child, with no power to move even his poor wasted hands which lay
outside the counterpane and seemed to trouble him, for there was a
wistful, pleading look in his gray eyes as they went from the hands to
Daisy, while his lips whispered faintly, "Cover."

She understood him, and with a rain of tears spread the sheet over them,
and then on her knees beside him, said to him amid her sobs:

"Forgive me, Tom, for what I did when I was crazy. You are not repulsive
to me. You are the truest, best, and dearest friend I ever had, and
I--I--oh, Tom, I wish I had never been born."

Daisy did not stay by Tom that night. There was no necessity for it, and
she