what a clod I must be! Not, mind
you, because, it is just possible to think, I owe you my life. Not that,
but because you were so kind. Because you were so kind, so kind--" he
reiterated feelingly, "and I a troublesome, cantankerous, distinctly
unappetizing object in his helpless bed. Don't think there was one touch
or gesture of these dear hands that take away headaches that I do not
remember with gratitude."

"There was nothing to be grateful for, nothing at all," insisted Aurora.

"And so when I wrote you in that brutal manner, dear,--"

"That letter was all right," Aurora vigorously snatched away from him
the turn to talk, in order to defend him from this misery of
compunction. "It was prompted by the most gentlemanly feelings, by real
unselfishness and consideration for me. You didn't want me talked about
on your account, and you put it as delicately as possible. Only I was a
fool; I went off the handle, and wrote while I was mad and hurt and
wanted to hurt back. But, bless you, I understand it all perfectly now.
You needn't say another word. I understand the letter, Gerald, and I
understand you."

"I am afraid," he said, letting go her hands and drawing a little apart,
as if the most complete misunderstanding, after all, separated them,--"I
am afraid you do not entirely. But this much at least is clear to you,
isn't it, dear, that whatever I may be, I am not ungrateful? Whatever I
may do, you are to remember that I couldn't be ungrateful to you,
Aurora. If I should seem to be behaving ever so, ever so shabbily, still
you must know that behind it, under it, I am the very contrary of
ungrateful." He pressed his hands to his eyes again, and was still for a
minute, before announcing, "I shall not come to see you for a long
time."

The astonished and acute attention of her whole being was indefinably
expressed by the silence in which she now listened.

"I am going to keep away from you," he went on, "till I feel out of
danger."

"Why, what's the matter now?" she asked, with the vehemence of her
surprise and disappointment.

"A trifle, woman dear. Oh, Lord, I see I shall have to go into it!
Haven't you the imagination to see, you unaccountable person, how an
unhappy mortal might be affected by such circumstances as destiny so
lately prepared for your poor servant's trying? Day by day, night after
night, that insidious kindness, that penetrating gentleness, that
stupefying atmosphere of a woman's care and symp