To others there might have seemed something humorous in the situation--in its almost farcical complications and misunderstandings. But these two saw none; the issues were too deep, too serious; death was too near in that upper room. "Was that why--she went away----?" Bettina whispered. "Yes." "Oh, write and tell her to come back." "I have written. I wrote yesterday. I saw that you were not happy. I felt that I had no right to permit you to marry me when my heart was bound up in another woman--as it was bound up in her. I felt that in marriage there is something which goes beyond conventional honor. As a physician I have seen much of unhappiness--and I could not sanction in myself that which I would not have sanctioned in another. So I told Diana. I think instinct warned me there was some one else, after your flight with Justin." "And now--if he gets--well." Anthony stood up. "He shall get well," he said, steadily. "I scarcely dare think of the things which are coming to you and to me, dear child. But when I think of them my heart says, 'Thank God.'" If she wept now in his arms, it was as a daughter might weep in the arms of a father--there was love between them at last, but it was the love of tried friendship, of passionate gratitude on her part, of protective affection on his. When he had quite soothed her, she drew off the sparkling rings. "These must go back to you," she said; "some day you must give them to Diana." He shook his head. "I shall give her pearls. She belongs to the sea, Bettina; she's the wife for a man of sailor instincts like myself--we love the harbor, and the great lights that are high above it, and the little lights that are low--and so I shall give her pearls. "But you must keep these," he went on; "not to wear on your third finger--Justin, please God, shall some day look after that--but to wear on your right hand, as my gift to you--for luck and a long and happy life." In the evening they rode over to see Miss Matthews, and found her sitting up. "I feel better," she said, "and there's something in the air. I want to know why I have a nurse, and why Bettina went away while I was asleep?" "And I want to know," said Anthony, sternly, "why you are out of bed?" "Because I am better," said Letty Matthews, "there's nothing in this world that can cure a person like curiosity--and I had to know what was going on." So Anthony told her, and she wept to think of the fate of the bird man with the broken wings. But she was cheered by the coming of Captain Stubbs. He bore on a tray such a supply of delicious viands that Miss Matthews urged that Bettina and Anthony should stay and have supper. Bettina could not eat. "Please, I'm not hungry," she said, and went down the winding stairway, and when she came back her arms were full of roses. "Will you let him have them in his room?" she asked Anthony. "He shall see them first when he opens his eyes," Anthony promised; "they shall carry all of your messages to him."