One day, when she had told Wilmot that she was wonderfully easy, had had quite a good night, and had hardly coughed at all since morning, he was sitting by her sofa, and she, lying with her face turned towards him, had fallen into a light sleep. He drew a coverlet closely round her, and signed to the nurse that she might leave the room. Then he sat quite still, his face rigid, his hands clasped, looking at her; looking at the thin pale face, with the blazing spots of red upon the cheekbones, with the darkened eyelids, the sunken temples, the dry red lips, the damp, limp, golden hair. As in a phantasmagoria, the days at Kilsyth passed before him; the day of his arrival, the day the nurse had asked him whether the golden hair must be cut off, the day he had pronounced her out of danger. Outwardly calm and stern, what a storm of anguish he was tossed upon! Words and looks and little incidents--small things, but infinite to him--came up and tormented him. Then came a sense of unreality; it could not be, it was not the same Madeleine; this was not Kilsyth's beautiful daughter. His hands went up to his face, and a groan burst from his lips. The sound frightened him. He looked at her again; and as he looked, her eyes opened, and she began to speak. Then came the frightful, the inevitable cough. He lifted her upon his arm, kneeling by her side, and the paroxysm passed over. Then she looked at him very gently and sweetly, and said: "Are we quite alone?" "Yes." "Do you remember one night at Kilsyth, when I was very ill, I asked you whether I was going to die?" "I remember," he said, with a desperate effort to keep down a sob. "And I told you I was very glad when you said, 'No.' Do you remember?" "Yes--I remember." She paused and looked at him; her blue eyes were as steady as they were bright. "If I asked you, but I don't--I don't"--she put out her wasted hand. He took the thin fingers in his, and trembled at their touch--"because I know--but if I did, you would not make me the same answer now." He did not speak, he did not look at her; but her eyes pertinaciously sought his, and he was forced to meet them. She smiled again, and her fingers clasped themselves round his. "You will always be papa's friend," she said. "Poor papa--he will miss me very much; the girls are too young as yet. And Ronald--I have something to say to you about Ronald. Sit here, close to me, in papa's chair, and listen." He changed his seat in obedience to her, and listened; his head bent down, and her golden hair almost touching his shoulder.