“Were it not for your tender care and watchfulness, I know well I could never have recovered from that severe illness. I cannot forget, I do not want to forget, the thousand little ways in which you assuaged my suffering, nor the still more touching kindness with which you bore my impatience. I often live it all over again, believe me, Mrs. Sewell.” “You used to call me Lucy,” said she, in a faint whisper. “Did I--did I dare?” “Yes, you dared. You dared even more than that, Lionel. You dared to speak to me, to write to me, as only he can write or speak who offers a woman his whole heart. I know the manly code on these matters is that when a married woman listens even once to such addresses, she admits the plea on which her love is sought; but I believed--yes, Lionel, I believed--that yours was a different nature. I knew--my heart told me--that you pitied me.” “That I did,” said he, with a quivering lip. “You pitied me because you saw the whole sad story of my life. You saw the cruel outrages, the insults I was exposed to! Poor Lionel'!” and she caught his hand as she spoke, “how severely did it often try your temper to endure what you witnessed!” Trafford bit his lip in silence, and she went on more eagerly: “I needed not defenders. I could have had scores of them. There was not a man who came to the house would not have been proud to be my champion. You know if this be a boast. You know how I was surrounded. For the very least of those caresess I bestowed upon you on your sick-bed, there was not one who would not have risked his life. Is this true?” “I believe it,” muttered he. “And why did I bear all this,” cried she, wildly,--“why did I endure, not alone and in the secrecy of my own home, but before the world,--in the crowd of a drawing-room,--outrage that wounds a woman's pride worse than a brought-home crime? Why did I live under it all? Just for this, that the one man who should have avenged me was sick, if not dying; and that if _he_ could not defend me, I would have no other. You said you pitied me,” said she, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Do you pity me still?” “With all my heart I pity you.” “I knew it,--I was sure of it!” said she, with a voice vibrating with a sort of triumph. “I always said you would come back,--that you had not, could not, forget me,--that you would no more desert me than a man deserts the comrade that has been shipwrecked with him. You see that I did not wrong you, Lionel.”