ou
wanted to do something great?"
"That isn't at all likely," said Percival with a melancholy smile. "I'm
all right, Sissy."
"No, you are pale. You wanted to surprise us. Oh, I guessed! Godfrey
Hammond didn't tell me. I should have been glad if I could have waited
to see it."
"Don't talk so," he entreated. "There will be nothing to see."
"You mustn't work too hard--promise," she whispered.
"No, dear, I won't."
"Percival, will you be good to me?"
"If I can I will indeed. What can I do?"
"I want you to have my money. It is my own, and I have nobody." Sissy
remembered the terrible mistake she had once made, and wanted an
assurance from his own lips that her gift was accepted.
Percival hesitated for a moment, and even the moment's hesitation
alarmed her. It was true, as she said, that she had nobody, and her
words opened a golden gateway before Judith and himself. Should he tell
her of that double joy and double gratitude? He believed that she would
be glad, but it seemed selfish and horrible to talk of love and marriage
by that bedside. "I wish you might live to need it all yourself, dear,"
he answered, and laid his hand softly on hers. The strip of embroidery
caught his eye. "What's this?" he said in blank surprise. "And your
thimble! Sissy, you mustn't bother yourself about this work now." He
would have drawn it gently away.
The fingers closed on it suddenly, and the weak voice panted: "No,
Percival. It's mine. That was before we were engaged: you spoilt my
other."
"O God!" he said. In a moment all came back to him. He remembered the
summer day at Brackenhill--Sissy and he upon the terrace--the work-box
upset and the thimble crushed beneath his foot. He remembered her pretty
reproaches and their laughter over her enforced idleness. He remembered
how he rode into Fordborough and bought that little gold thimble--the
first present he ever made her. All his gifts during their brief
engagement had been scrupulously returned, but this, as she had said,
was given before. And she was dying with it in her hand! She had loved
him from first to last.
"Percival, you will take my money?" she pleaded, fearing some
incomprehensible scruple.
"For God's sake, Sissy! I must think a moment." He buried his face in
his hands.
"Oh, you are cruel!" she whispered.
How could he think? Sissy loved him--had always loved him. It was all
plain to him now. He had been blind, and he had come back to find out
the tr
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