he or she
remembered. Now and then the Nurse caught Billy Grant's eyes fixed
on her as she moved about the room, with a curious wistful
expression in them. And sometimes, waking from a doze, he would find
her in her chair by the window, with her book dropped into her lap
and a frightened look in her eyes, staring at him.

He gained strength rapidly and the day came when, with the orderly's
assistance, he was lifted to a chair. There was one brief moment in
which he stood tottering on his feet. In that instant he had
realised what a little thing she was, after all, and what a cruel
advantage he had used for his own purpose.

When he was settled in the chair and the orderly had gone she
brought an extra pillow to put behind him, and he dared the first
personality of their new relationship.

"What a little girl you are, after all!" he said. "Lying there in
the bed shaking at your frown, you were so formidable."

"I am not small," she said, straightening herself. She had always
hoped that her cap gave her height. "It is you who are so tall.
You--you are a giant!"

"A wicked giant, seeking whom I may devour and carrying off lovely
girls for dinner under pretence of marriage----" He stopped his
nonsense abruptly, having got so far, and both of them coloured.
Thrashing about desperately for something to break the wretched
silence, he seized on the one thing that in those days of his
convalescence was always pertinent--food. "Speaking of dinner," he
said hastily, "isn't it time for some buttermilk?"

She was quite calm when she came back--cool, even smiling; but
Billy Grant had not had the safety valve of action. As she placed
the glass on the table at his elbow he reached out and took her
hand.

"Can you ever forgive me?" he asked. Not an original speech; the
usual question of the marauding male, a query after the fact and too
late for anything but forgiveness.

"Forgive you? For not dying?"

She was pale; but no more subterfuge now, no more turning aside from
dangerous subjects. The matter was up before the house.

"For marrying you!" said Billy Grant, and upset the buttermilk. It
took a little time to wipe up the floor and to put a clean cover on
the stand, and after that to bring a fresh glass and place it on the
table. But these were merely parliamentary preliminaries while each
side got its forces in line.

"Do you hate me very much?" opened Billy Grant. This was, to change
the figure, a blow below the be