"Yes, thank you. You're my sort of husband. This--this is really too bad of me, Francis. But, anyway, it was your swamp!" Just the old, mocking, smiling Marjorie, or her shadow. But it did not make him angry now; it seemed so piteous that he should have brought her to this. The swamp faded to nothingness as a cause of her illness when he compared it to his own behavior. "Marjorie," he asked, very gently so as not to disturb her, "would it be too exciting if I talked to you a little bit about things, and told you how sorry I was?" "Why--no," she said weakly, shutting her eyes. "I was wrong, from start to finish," he said impetuously. "I'm sorry. I want you to forgive me." "Why, certainly," she said, so indifferently that his heart sank. It did not occur to him that he had never said that he cared for her at all. "Is there anything I could get you?" he asked futilely as he felt. "I'd like to see Mr. Pennington. He was kind to me." "Marjorie, Marjorie, won't you ever forgive me for the way I acted?" "Oh, yes," she said, lying with shut eyes, so quiet that her lips scarcely moved when she talked. "I said so. But you haven't been kind. It's like--don't you know, when you get a little dog used to being struck it gets so it cowers when you speak to it, no matter if you aren't going to strike it that time. I don't want to be hurt any more. I don't love Pennington--he's too funny-looking, and awfully old. But he was kind--he never hurt my feelings. . . ." She spoke without much inflection, and using as few words as she could. When she had finished she still lay there, as silent and out of Francis's reach as if she were dead. He tiptoed out with a sick feeling that everything was over, which he had never had before. She was so remote. She cared so little about anything. He went back to work, and told Pennington that Marjorie wanted to see him. When the day was over he returned to the cabin again, and found Mrs. O'Mara on duty once more. Pennington sat by Marjorie, holding her hand in his, and speaking to her occasionally. Francis looked at him, and spoke to him courteously. Pennington smiled at him, and stayed where he was. Marjorie, Mrs. O'Mara said, seemed to cling to him, and his presence did her good. And--she broke it as gently as she could--though the patient was on the road to getting well now, she was disturbed by his coming in and out. She seemed afraid of him. Francis took it very quietly. After that he only came to the bedroom door to ask, and stepped as softly as he could, so that she would not even know he had been there. And time went on, and she got better, and presently could be dressed in soft, loose, fluffy things, and lie out on the veranda during the warmest part of the day, and see people for a little while each. It was about this time that Francis went to sleep at the bunk-house.