rue. He seemed to tell her so, to be telling it with his last
breath. And each breath might be the last. Science could not save him.
Physicians disagreed--the great authority himself could not say whether
he was to live or die. He fainted, fell back, seemed dead already, and
her voice and touch brought him to life, happy for an instant, hoping
still and living only by the beating of hope's wings. And with all that,
though she did not love him, he was to her the dearest of all living
beings. Holding his hand still, she looked upward, as though to be alone
with herself for one breathing space. But as she stood there, she
pressed his fingers little by little more tightly, not knowing what she
did, so that he wondered.

Then she bent down again, and steadily gazed into the upturned blue
eyes, and once more smoothed away the fair hair from the pallid brow.

"Do you wish it very much?" she asked simply.

Half paralyzed though he was, he started, and the light that came
suddenly to his face, wavered and sank and rose once more. She seemed to
hear his words again, saying that she could stand between death and him,
were death ever so near.

"You?" he faltered. "Wish for you? Ah God! Veronica--" his face grew
dead again. "No--no--I did not understand--"

"But I mean it!" she said, in desperate, low tones, for she thought he
was sinking back. "I will marry you, Gianluca! I will, dear--I will--I
am in earnest!"

Slowly his eyes opened again and looked at her, wide, startled, and half
blind with joy. So the leader looks who, stunned to death between the
door-posts of the hard-won gate, wakes unhurt to life in the tide of the
victory he led, and hears the strong music of triumph, and the huge
shout of brave men whose bursting throats cry out his name for very
glory's sake, their own and his.

Gianluca's eyes opened, and with sudden pressure he grasped the hand
that had so long held his, believing because he held it and felt the
flesh and blood and the warmth in his own shadowy hold.

"Veronica--love!" She would not have thought that he could press her
fingers so hard, weak as he was.

The word smote her, even then, with a small icy chill, and though she
smiled, there was a shadow in her face. Again he doubted.

"Veronica--for the love of God--you are not deceiving me, to save my
life?" The vision of despair rose in his eyes.

"Deceive you? I?" she cried, with sudden energy. "Indeed, indeed, I mean
it, as I said it."

"