but you
must promise me, nevertheless, that you will have a doctor to look at
you."

Her tone is still exquisitely kind; but there is now a studied
indifference about it that hurts him keenly. Perhaps in his surprise at
this sudden change of manner he overlooks the fact that the difference
_is_ studied!

"I have given you too much trouble," he says, stupidly, in a leaden sort
of way. "But, as you say, you have been successful, I feel hardly any
pain now."

"Then I suppose I may dismiss you," she says, with a frugal little
smile, just glancing at the half opened door. The nervousness, the
sympathy is over, and she remembers how lost to social consideration is
the man to whose comfort she has been contributing for the past twenty
minutes.

"I have taken up too much of your time already," he says in a frozen
tone, and then he turns and goes toward the door. But, after a moment's
reflection, he faces round again abruptly, and comes up to her, and
stands before her with set lips and eyes aflame. His nostrils are
dilated, there is intense mental pressure discernible in every line of
his face.

"I do not mistake you," he says, with slow vehemence; "I am not such a
dullard that I should count your bare charity as friendship. You have
succoured me, as you would, of your grace, no doubt have succoured the
vilest criminal that walks the earth, were he in death or pain."

She has grown very pale, and is rather frightened, if her eyes speak
truly.

"Now that the reaction has set in," he goes on, bitterly, "you believe
you have demeaned yourself in that you have assisted one who----"

"You are saying what is not true," she says, in a low but clear voice;
speaking slowly, and with difficulty, because her lips are white and
dry.

"Am I?" exclaims he, passionately. "Say, if you can, that you believe me
innocent of all guilt, and I will believe you!"

He pauses--she is silent. A terrible moment ensues, fraught with agony
for Fabian, and still she makes no sign. Her hands, tightly clasped, are
hanging before her; her head is turned aside; her eyes persistently seek
the floor. As if every nerve in her body is strung to excess, she stands
so motionless that she might almost be a statue cut in marble.

Her silence is painfully eloquent. Fabian, in an excess of passion,
tears off the cambric bandages from his arm, and flings them at her
feet.

"I will have none of your charity," he says, with pale lips, and,
throwing wide th