"But I do--I do care. I could clap my hands, I could glory to cry it from the house-tops, how I care, how I am here, on my knees, begging you will marry me." "You are kneeling? Yes? Kneel then; even that, since it brings you closer. But let's not talk of this now. I'm not used to the knowledge of the first yet. Will you put your hand in mine, Harriet?" The girl over in the shadow felt that her heart would break. And this was love. The great, sad thing was love! He was talking again. "I never thought, surely, to be a stick of a man like this. I could have made a royal lover, Harriet. A man's blood at forty is like wine at its fulness. My head--won't lift--God, that it should come to find me like this! yet, kiss me, will you, Harriet?" But a moment and she returned to her pleading. "They will send me away from you, you know, I have no right to be here--unless you give it to me?" Was she using this, the inference, to move him? For he caught it at once. "You came--I see, I see." But she had fled from her position. "It's not that, as if I cared, as if you thought I cared, it's because I want to have been--" But the other had stuck. "Is the doctor there?" he asked. The young fellow came to the bed. "I would like to see Father Ryan," said the Major. The priest came. The two were intimates. He listened to the instructions, the exigencies of the case to be met by him. A license was necessary. "And try and get Miss Blair's brother to accompany you, and to come here with you; you will make it all clear to him." Harriet was looking up at the priest, whom she saw as the friend of the man she loved. "And you will come back and marry us yourself, won't you?" she asked. He was looking down at her. Even after the long night, in the cold light of a winter dawn, and in the garishness of an evening gown in daylight, she was triumphantly beautiful. With her hand on the smooth brown hand of the Major, she sat and looked up at the cassocked priest. The marble of her face had given way to a divine light and radiance. He looked down on her. "I will come," he told her. It was some hours before he was back. The young doctor had gone and come. Dawn had broadened into a grey and sullen day. Breakfast was sent up and placed in an adjoining room for Harriet and Alexina. The girl tried to eat, if only to seem grateful to the Sister bringing it, but Harriet wandered about the room, and, when Alexina brought her a cup of coffee, shook her head. She watched the door until the doctors were gone and she might return to him, then went in and sat by him again. His eyes were closed, but his hand, seeking as she sat down, found hers. Later, as the priest returned, the gaze from the pillow turned to the door eagerly. Austen was not with him. The face steeled. The Mother came in, and at a sign from the priest they gathered around, Alexina, the young doctor, the nurse. With his hand in Harriet's the Major followed to the end.