workin' f' you, fightin' death away from you.
Oh, I guess it's her fault as you're alive this day! Anyway, her an'
you's man an' wife till death do you part."

"But death--hasn't, you see."

"An' death sure ain't goin' to--yet."

"No, I'm--I'm very much alive still, it seems."

"You sure are, glory be t' th' Lord of Hosts to who I have also
petitioned frequent on your behoof. An' now I'll call th' doctor."

"No, no--not Dennison; let me see her first. Can't I speak to Hermione
first, Mrs. Trapes?"

"She was up with you all las' night, sweet lamb! It'd be a shame to wake
her--"

"So it would--don't disturb her."

"But I guess she'd never forgive me if I didn't wake her. So if you'll
promise t' be good--"

"I will!"

"An' not go gettin' all worked up an' excited?"

"I will not!"

"Why then, perhaps ten minutes wouldn't hurt."

"God bless you, Mrs. Trapes!"

Left alone, he tried to sit up, and finding this strangely difficult,
examined his hands and arms, scowling to find himself so weak. Then he
clapped hand to bony jaw and was shocked to feel thereon a growth of
ragged beard, and then--she was before him. Fresh from her slumbers she
came, wrapped in a scanty kimono whose thin, clinging folds revealed
more of her shapely beauty than he had ever seen as she hurried across
the wide chamber.

"Hermione," he said, and reached out his hands to her. And his voice
was no longer the feeble echo it had been; the hand that clasped hers,
though still thin and weak, thrilled her anew with its masterful touch.
Because of all this, her words of tender greeting remained unspoken, the
arms which had been eager to cradle his helplessness crossed themselves
on her bosom; she became aware of naked ankles and of bare feet thrust
into bedroom slippers and needs must hide them, and the better to do so,
sank upon the bed, her feet tucked under her. So she sat, just beyond
his reach, and, conscious of scanty draperies, shook her shining hair
about her, veiling herself in its glory.

"Hermione," he said unsteadily, "I--I never knew quite how beautiful you
were--and we--we are married, it seems!"

"Yes," she said softly.

"And now I'm--I'm afraid I'm going to--live!"

"Afraid?"

"It--it almost seems as though I had married you under false pretences,
doesn't it? But the doctors and everybody were so certain I was to die
that I thought so too. And now--I'm going to live, it seems."

She was silent, and slowly his hand we