Love stories; Poor -- Fiction; Violinists -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Once at their destination, they tiptoed into Theodore's room
noiselessly, and as Jinnie stood over the bed, looking down upon him,
she suffered keenly, he looked so deathlike; but she resolutely
controlled her feelings. When Theodore glanced at her, she forced
herself to smile, and the sight of the lovely girl refreshed the sick
man, giving him a new impetus to recover.
He smiled back, endeavoring not to show his weakness.
"You see I'm getting well," he whispered.
Jinnie nodded. She wasn't sure whether he was or not. How her heart
ached to do something for him!
One of his long, thin hands lay over the coverlet, and Jinnie wanted
to kiss it. Tears were standing thick on her lashes.
The doctor stood beside her, consulting his watch.
"If you wish to speak, Mr. King," he said kindly, "you must do so
quickly, for the young lady can stay but two minutes more. That's
all!"
The doctor turned his back upon them, watch in hand.
"Kiss me, dear!" murmured Theodore.
Oblivious of the doctor's presence, Jinnie stooped and kissed him
twice, taking the thin hand he extended.
"I sent for you because I feared you'd go to work at the wood again."
Jinnie would reassure him on this point even by an untruth, for she
might be driven, for the sake of Peggy and the children, to go back
into that hated occupation.
"I promise I won't," she said.
"Are you still taking lessons?"
Jinnie shook her head.
"I couldn't when you were sick. I just couldn't."
"But you must; you must go to-morrow. I have something here for you,"
he said, reaching under the pillow with his free hand.
Jinnie drew back abashed.
"You're too sick to think of us," she murmured.
Theodore raised her hand to his lips.
"No! No, darling, I think of you always--every day and shall even
when I'm dead. You must take this money. Do you love me, dearest, very
much?"
He smiled again as she stooped impetuously to kiss him, and with her
face very close to his, she whispered,
"Lafe didn't do it, darling!"
"I know it," replied Theodore, closing his eyes.
Then the doctor turned and sent her away.
When she sank back in the automobile, Jinnie opened her hand with the
roll of bills in it, and all the way home, she repeated, "He has given
His angels charge over thee." She was hoping and praying for Theodore
King.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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