the quiet, he would lie often sombrely
contemplating the girl's room, her little dainty knickknacks, her home
photographs, all the delicate manifestations of what she came from and
what she was. Strength was flowing back into him each day, and Judge
Henry's latest messenger had brought him clothes and mail from Sunk
Creek and many inquiries of kindness, and returned taking the news of
the cow-puncher's improvement, and how soon he would be permitted the
fresh air. Hence Molly found him waiting in a flannel shirt of highly
becoming shade, and with a silk handkerchief knotted round his throat;
and he told her it was good to feel respectable again.

She had come to read to him for the allotted time; and she threw around
his shoulders the scarlet and black Navajo blanket, striped with its
splendid zigzags of barbarity. Thus he half sat, half leaned, languid
but at ease. In his lap lay one of the letters brought over by the
messenger: and though she was midway in a book that engaged his full
attention--DAVID COPPERFELD--his silence and absent look this morning
stopped her, and she accused him of not attending.

"No," he admitted; "I am thinking of something else."

She looked at him with that apprehension which he knew.

"It had to come," said he. "And to-day I see my thoughts straighter than
I've been up to managing since--since my haid got clear. And now I
must say these thoughts--if I can, if I can!" He stopped. His eyes were
intent upon her; one hand was gripping the arm of his chair.

"You promised--" trembled Molly.

"I promised you should love me," he sternly interrupted. "Promised that
to myself. I have broken that word."

She shut DAVID COPPERHEAD mechanically, and grew white.

"Your letter has come to me hyeh," he continued, gentle again.

"My--" She had forgotten it.

"The letter you wrote to tell me good-by. You wrote it a little while
ago--not a month yet, but it's away and away long gone for me."

"I have never let you know--" began Molly.

"The doctor," he interrupted once more, but very gently now, "he gave
awdehs I must be kept quiet. I reckon yu' thought tellin' me might--"

"Forgive me!" cried the girl. "Indeed I ought to have told you sooner!
Indeed I had no excuse!"

"Why, should yu' tell me if yu' preferred not? You had written. And you
speak" (he lifted the letter) "of never being able to repay kindness;
but you have turned the tables. I can never repay you by anything! by
anything! So