a. He had snatched
her as by a miracle from that snaky river.

He had refused to have a nurse. Aunt Rosamund and Mrs. Markey were
skilled in sickness, and he could not bear that a strange person should
listen to those delirious mutterings. His own part of the nursing was
just to sit there and keep her secrets from the others--if he could. And
he grudged every minute away from his post. He would stay for hours,
with eyes fixed on her face. No one could supply so well as he just that
coherent thread of the familiar, by which the fevered, without knowing
it, perhaps find their way a little in the dark mazes where they wander.
And he would think of her as she used to be--well and happy--adopting
unconsciously the methods of those mental and other scientists whom he
looked upon as quacks.

He was astonished by the number of inquiries, even people whom he had
considered enemies left cards or sent their servants, forcing him to the
conclusion that people of position are obliged to reserve their human
kindness for those as good as dead. But the small folk touched him daily
by their genuine concern for her whose grace and softness had won their
hearts. One morning he received a letter forwarded from Bury Street.

"DEAR MAJOR WINTON,

"I have read a paragraph in the paper about poor Mr. Summerhay's death.
And, oh, I feel so sorry for her! She was so good to me; I do feel it
most dreadfully. If you think she would like to know how we all feel for
her, you would tell her, wouldn't you? I do think it's cruel.

"Very faithfully yours,

"DAPHNE WING."

So they knew Summerhay's name--he had not somehow expected that. He did
not answer, not knowing what to say.

During those days of fever, the hardest thing to bear was the sound of
her rapid whisperings and mutterings--incoherent phrases that said so
little and told so much. Sometimes he would cover his ears, to avoid
hearing of that long stress of mind at which he had now and then
glimpsed. Of the actual tragedy, her wandering spirit did not seem
conscious; her lips were always telling the depth of her love, always
repeating the dread of losing his; except when they would give a
whispering laugh, uncanny and enchanting, as at some gleam of perfect
happiness. Those little laughs were worst of all to hear; they never
failed to bring tears into his eyes. But he drew a certain gruesome
comfort from the conclusion slowly forced on him, that Summerhay's tragic
death