He raised himself from his pillows as he took her small, warm, fibrous hand, and his pallid face brightened into a tearful smile. "Ah!" he said, drawing a deep breath, "I am so glad to see you again!" "I am glad to see you too," said Leam with a certain sudden embarrassment, she did not know why, but it came from something that she saw in his eyes and could not explain even to herself. "Are you?" He pressed her hand, which he still held. "It does me good to hear you say so," he replied. "I have brought you some flowers," then said Leam, a little coldly, drawing away her hand, which she hated to have either held or pressed. He took them with a pleased smile. "Our pretty wild-flowers!" he said gratefully, burying his face in them, so cool and fresh and fragrant as they were. "They are like the giver," he added after a pause, "only not so sweet." "Do you remember when I persisted to you there were no wild-flowers in England?" asked Leam, wishing that Alick would not pay her compliments. "Do I remember? That was the first time I saw you," cried Alick. "Of what else have I thought ever since?" "You like wild-flowers and celandine, do you not?" asked poor Leam, desperately disturbed. "I found them in the wood as I came here." "And picked them for me?--up in the corner there by Barton's? I know. And you went up the lane for them--for me?" he repeated. "Yes," said Leam. "For me?" he asked again. "Why, yes: for whom else could it have been?" answered Leam in the tone of grave rebuke he knew so well--the tone which always expressed, "You are stupid." Alick's lip quivered. "You are so good," he said. "Am I?" asked Leam seriously. Then something passed over her face, a kind of gray shadow of remembrance, and she dropped her eyes. Was she good? and could he think so? A silence fell between them, and each knew of what the other was thinking; then Leam said suddenly, to break that terrible silence, which she felt was more betraying than even speech would have been, "I am sorry you have been so ill. How dreadfully ill you have been!" "Yes," he said, "I have been bad enough, I believe, but by God's grace I have been spared." "It would have been more grace not to have let you get ill in the beginning," said Leam gravely. Alick looked distressed. Should he never Christianize this pagan? "Don't say that, dear," he remonstrated. "We must not call in question His will." "Things are things," said Leam with her quiet positiveness. "If they are bad, they are bad, whoever sends them." "No. God cannot send us evil," cried Alick. "Then He does not send us disease or sorrow," answered Leam. "If He does, it is silly to say they are good, or that He is kind to make us ill and wretched. I cannot tell stories. And all you people do." "Leam, you pain me so much when you talk like this. It is bad, dear--impious and unchristian. Ah! can I never bring you to the true way?" he cried with real pain.