"Bring out your boat," he would say. "It’s time we were off, for the tide is at its height, and the river is running so fast. I thought once it would take Daisy, but it left her and I am glad. When I am fairly over and there’s nothing but my big freckled hulk left, cover my face, and don’t let her look at me, though I’ll be white then, not red. Oh, Daisy, Daisy, my darling, you hurt me so cruelly." Those were terrible days for Daisy, but she never left her post, and stood resolutely between the sick man and _that other one_ in the corner, until the latter seemed to waver a little; his shadow was not so black, his presence so all-pervading, and there was hope for Tom, the doctor said. His reason came back at last, and the fever left him, weak as a little child, with no power to move even his poor wasted hands, which lay outside the counterpane and seemed to trouble him, for there was a wistful, pleading look in his gray eyes as they went from the hands to Daisy, and his lips whispered faintly: "Cover." She understood him, and with a rain of tears spread the sheet over them, and then on her knees beside him, said to him, amid her sobs: "Forgive me, Tom, for what I said when I was crazy. You are not repulsive to me. You are the truest, best, and dearest friend I ever had, and I—I—Oh, Tom, live for my sake, and let me prove how—Oh, Tom, I wish I had never been born." Daisy did not stay with Tom that night. There was no necessity for it, and she was so worn and weary with watching that the physician declared she must have absolute rest or be sick again. So she staid away, and in a little room by herself fought the fiercest battle she had ever fought, and on her knees, with tears and bitter cries, asked for help to do right. Not for help to know what was right. She felt sure that she did know that, only the flesh was weak, and there were chords of love still clinging to a past she scarcely dared think of now, lest her courage should fail her. Guy was lost to her forever; it was a sin even to think of him as she must think if she thought at all, and so she strove to put him from her,—to tear his image from her heart, and put another in its place,—Tom, whom she pitied so much, and whom she could make so happy. "No matter for myself," she said at last. "No matter what I feel, or how sharp the pain in my heart, if I only keep it there and never let Tom know. I can make him happy, and I will." There was no wavering after that decision,—no regret for the "might have been,"—but her face was white as snow, and about the pretty mouth there was a quivering of the muscles, as if the words were hard to utter, when next day she went to Tom, and sitting down beside him, asked how he was feeling. His eyes brightened a little when he saw her, but there was a look on his face which made Daisy’s pulse quicken with a nameless fear, and his voice was very weak, as he replied: