“Yes, but a time will come when you will tell me, or others, that you are; and I think that you will be right—she is a sweet girl. And now, sir,” she added, with a total change of manner, “I think that I had better tidy up and bid you good night, and good-bye, for I dare say that I shall come back here no more. I can’t wait to be driven out like a strange dog.” And she began to perform her various sick-room duties with a mechanical precision. Henry watched her for a while, until at length all was done and she made ready to go. Then the heart which he had striven to repress burst its bonds, and he sat up and said to her, in a voice that was almost a cry,— “Oh! Joan, I don’t know what has come to me, but I can’t bear to part with you, though it is best that you should go, for I cannot offer to marry you. I wish to Heaven that I could.” She came and stood beside him. “I will remember those words as long as I live,” she said, “because I know that they are true. I know also why you could not marry me; for we hear all the gossip, and putting that aside it would be your ruin, though for me it might be heaven.” “Do you really care about me, then, Joan?” he asked anxiously, “and so much as that? You must forgive me, but I am ignorant in these things. I didn’t quite understand. I feel that I have become a bit foolish, but I didn’t know that you had caught the disease.” “Care about you! Anyway, I care enough not to let you marry me even if you would. I think that to bring ruin and disgrace upon a man and all his family would be a poor way to show one’s love for him. You see, you have everything to lose. You are not like me who have nothing, not even a name. Care about you!” she went on, with a strange, almost unnatural energy—and her low, caressing voice seemed to thrill every fibre of his heart and leave them trembling, as harp-strings thrill and tremble beneath the hand of the player—“I wonder if there are any words in the world that could make you understand how much I care. Listen. When first I saw you yonder by the Abbey, a change crept over me; and when you lay there senseless in my arms, I became a new woman, as though I were born again—a woman whose mind I could not read, for it was different from my own. Afterwards I read it; it was when they thought that you were dying, and suddenly I learned that you would live. When I heard Miss Levinger cry out and saw her fall, then I read it, and knew that I also loved you. I should have gone; but I didn’t go, for I could not tear myself away from you. Oh! pity me, and do not think too hardly of me; for remember who and what I am—a woman who has never had any one to love, father or mother or sister or friend, and yet who desires love above everything. And now it had come to me at last; and that one love of mine made up for all that I had missed, and was greater and stronger in itself than the hundred different loves of happier girls can be. I loved you, and I loved you, and I love you.