should
come; so he only sat down across from her and tried to speak naturally.

"Do you know me, Marjorie?" he asked, trying to make his voice sound as
it always sounded. But it was a little hoarse.

She spoke, in a thread of a voice, that yet had a little mockery in it.
She seemed to have taken things up where she dropped them.

"Yes, thank you. You're my sort of husband. This--this is really too
bad of me, Francis. But, anyway, it was your swamp!"

Just the old, mocking, smiling Marjorie, or her shadow. But it did not
make him angry now; it seemed so piteous that he should have brought
her to this. The swamp faded to nothingness as a cause of her illness
when he compared it to his own behavior.

"Marjorie," he asked, very gently so as not to disturb her, "would it
be too exciting if I talked to you a little bit about things, and told
you how sorry I was?"

"Why--no," she said weakly, shutting her eyes.

"I was wrong, from start to finish," he said impetuously. "I'm sorry.
I want you to forgive me."

"Why, certainly," she said, so indifferently that his heart sank. It
did not occur to him that he had never said that he cared for her at
all.

"Is there anything I could get you?" he asked futilely as he felt.

"I'd like to see Mr. Pennington. He was kind to me."

"Marjorie, Marjorie, won't you ever forgive me for the way I acted?"

"Oh, yes," she said, lying with shut eyes, so quiet that her lips
scarcely moved when she talked. "I said so. But you haven't been
kind. It's like--don't you know, when you get a little dog used to
being struck it gets so it cowers when you speak to it, no matter if
you aren't going to strike it that time. I don't want to be hurt any
more. I don't love Pennington--he's too funny-looking, and awfully
old. But he was kind--he never hurt my feelings. . . ."

She spoke without much inflection, and using as few words as she could.
When she had finished she still lay there, as silent and out of
Francis's reach as if she were dead. He tiptoed out with a sick
feeling that everything was over, which he had never had before. She
was so remote. She cared so little about anything.

He went back to work, and told Pennington that Marjorie wanted to see
him. When the day was over he returned to the cabin again, and found
Mrs. O'Mara on duty once more. Pennington sat by Marjorie, holding her
hand in his, and speaking to her occasionally. Francis looked at him,
and spoke t