He had awaked, bewildered, as he saw her coming towards him. He now took her arm from around his neck, pressed her hand again and again to his lips, and then laying it on his heart crossed his arms over it, letting one of his hands rest on her head. For a little while he could not trust himself to speak; his love threatened to overmaster his self-renunciation. But then, not knowing why she had come unless from some great sympathy for his sufferings, or perhaps to see him once more since he was now soon to go away, and not understanding any cause for her distress but the tragedy in which he had entangled her life--feeling only sorrow for her sorrow and wishing only by means of his last words to help her back to such peace as she still might win, he said to her with immeasurable gentleness-- "I thought you would never come! I thought I should have to go away without seeing you again! They tell me it is not yet a month since the accident, but it seems to me so _long_--a lifetime! I have lain here day after day thinking it over, and I see things differently now--so differently! That is why I wanted to see you once more. I wanted you to understand that I felt you had done right in refusing--in refusing to marry me. I wanted to ask you never to blame yourself for what has happened--never to let any thought of having made _me_ unhappy add to the sorrow of your life. It is my fault, not yours. But I meant it--God _knows_, I meant it!--for the happiness of us both? I believed that your life was not suited to you. I meant to make you happy! But since you _cannot_ give up your life, I have only been unkind. And since you think it wrong to give it up, I am glad that you are so true to it! If you _must_ live it, Heaven only knows how glad I am that you will live it heroically. And Heaven keep me equally true to the duty in mine, that I also shall not fail in it! If we never meet again, we can always think of each other as living true to ourselves and to one another. Don't deny me this! Let me believe that your thoughts and prayers will always follow me. Even your vows will not deny me this! It will always keep us near each other, and it will bring us together where they cannot separate us." He had spoken with entire repression of himself, in the slow voice of an invalid, and on the stillness of the room each word had fallen with hard distinctness. But now, with the thought of losing her, by a painful effort he moved closer to the edge of the bed, put his arms around her neck, drew her face against his own, and continued-- "But do not think it is easy to tell you this! Do not think it is easy to give you up! Do not think that I do not love you! O Pauline--not in _another_ life, but in _this_--_in this_!" He could say no more; and out of his physical weakness tears rose to his eyes and fell drop by drop upon her veil. VIII.