Nobody knew at all what she meant, or spoke to her as she fondled Gertie’s face and hands, and asked her where she had been so long, and how it was she was so fair and sweet, so different from the girls in the street. Then for a moment consciousness struggled to assert itself, and she seemed to know who Gertie was, and whispered to her: “Stay with me,—I’m better when I see you.” Once before Gertie’s presence had called her back from the border land of death, and now she was so much quieter with her there that Gertie never left her except for the rest which she absolutely needed. In this condition of affairs Godfrey had no chance for seeing Gertie alone, except on one occasion, when he met her for a moment in a side hall, and stopping her as she was passing him, said to her: “Gertie, have you not changed your mind? Must your answer to me be always the same?” “Yes, Godfrey, always the same. Go back to Alice; try to love her. You will be happier so,” was Gertie’s reply, and Godfrey answered: “Never, so long as I have my senses. I will wait for you a thousand years.” He tried to kiss her hand, but she snatched it from him, and hurried away to the sick-room. The next day he returned to New York, and soon after, in a letter to her father, Julia spoke of her brother as having escorted Alice to a grand party given by the Montgomeries on Madison Avenue. This piece of news the colonel managed to convey to Gertie, who felt a pain in her heart as she guessed what the end would probably be. Edith was better now. The fearful paroxysms had ceased, and she lay very quiet and still, seldom speaking to any one, but shuddering and manifesting actual distress when her husband came to her with words and acts of tenderness. “Don’t, please; I can’t bear it,” she said to him once, when he brought a bouquet and laid it upon her pillow. He thought the perfume offended her, and took the flowers away; then, sitting down beside her, told her how glad he was that she was better, and how desolate the house seemed without her. For a moment she listened to him while every muscle in her face worked painfully; then, bursting into tears, she put up both her hands to hide her face, and cried: “Don’t, Howard, you break my heart. Oh, Howard, my husband, pity me, but don’t make it harder with words of love. Go away, please, and do not come again till I send for you; then you will want to go.” He felt hurt and wounded, but did as she bade him, and left her with Gertie; nor did he see her again for one whole week, except when she was asleep, and could not be disturbed by his presence. Then he would go in, and bending over her kiss her face softly, and smooth the golden brown hair, and calling her his poor darling leave behind some little token to show that he had been there. At last Edith asked for her mother suddenly, and in a way which admitted of no prevarication, and Gertie told her everything, as carefully as possible.