nd of warning from the
nurse who moved forward out of the shadow.

Material things seemed to come back to Harriet. Alarm sprang into her
voice. "Shall I go away?" she asked the nurse, even timidly.

The answer came from him. "No; oh, no. Since it may be for so little
time I may ask it of you; stay with me, Harriet."

She turned to the doctor.

"Stay," he told her, poor boy, new to these things.

"Then give me my way," Harriet begged, turning back again. She had
forgotten the others already. "You said that after what happened
between you and Austen you wanted it known how you felt to me. Haven't
I the same right and more, since it was my brother who said it, to
want the world to know how I feel to you?"

They could feel the laugh in his reply. "The world, the world, as if
you ever cared for what the world--come, be honest, Harriet; you say
this in the generous desire of making it up to me."

"But I do--I do care. I could clap my hands, I could glory to cry it
from the house-tops, how I care, how I am here, on my knees, begging
you will marry me."

"You are kneeling? Yes? Kneel then; even that, since it brings you
closer. But let's not talk of this now. I'm not used to the knowledge
of the first yet. Will you put your hand in mine, Harriet?"

The girl over in the shadow felt that her heart would break. And this
was love. The great, sad thing was love!

He was talking again. "I never thought, surely, to be a stick of a man
like this. I could have made a royal lover, Harriet. A man's blood at
forty is like wine at its fulness. My head--won't lift--God, that it
should come to find me like this! yet, kiss me, will you, Harriet?"

But a moment and she returned to her pleading. "They will send me away
from you, you know, I have no right to be here--unless you give it to
me?"

Was she using this, the inference, to move him?

For he caught it at once. "You came--I see, I see."

But she had fled from her position. "It's not that, as if I cared, as
if you thought I cared, it's because I want to have been--"

But the other had stuck. "Is the doctor there?" he asked.

The young fellow came to the bed.

"I would like to see Father Ryan," said the Major.

The priest came. The two were intimates. He listened to the
instructions, the exigencies of the case to be met by him. A license
was necessary. "And try and get Miss Blair's brother to accompany you,
and to come here with you; you will make it all clear to him."