"You've been here? ... all night?" His tone was eloquent, eyes and voice bespoke his disappointment. "And I never knew! To sleep like that... and you here!" "If knowledge of my presence would have kept you awake, I am glad you did not know," she said. "You were a little feverish. We did not like to leave you alone. But you've slept well." She touched his neck lightly with her hand, the dear soft hand he longed to hold and kiss--the hand which he had taken and almost flung from him when he first heard of her marriage. "The fever has gone," she added. "You will soon be all right." "I'm all right now," he insisted. "I feel quite fit. It's awfully good of you to have bothered, but you ought not to have sat up; it wasn't necessary." "I wasn't sure," she returned, "how badly you were hurt. I didn't realise at first that you were hurt. I am sorry... I want you to-- forgive that injury." "Oh, that!" he said, and thought of the greater injury Holman had contrived. "I ran that risk with my eyes open. I'm not counting that." She fell on her knees beside the bed and laid her two hands with swift impulsiveness upon his breast. "I know," she said, speaking very quickly and in lowered tones, her face close to his, the soft eyes holding his eyes filled with an eager pleading which it was difficult to resist--"I know you and Heinrich are enemies... For that matter _we_ are enemies--you and I--" "No," he interrupted sharply... "No... You and I, enemies! ... Honor..." "Ah!" she breathed softly, and the hands on his breast pressed more firmly. "I didn't mean that--not actually. Always in my heart I've known that couldn't be. You're my--" "Lover," he interjected hoarsely. She winced and her face went white. "Friend--my dear friend," she corrected, but so gently, and with so little real conviction in her voice that it was rather as though she admitted his definition of the relationship. "You are my friend. You must remain my friend... I want to keep--just that." There were tears in her eyes now. She did not attempt to hide them: they welled there, priceless diamonds from a mine of ungathered wealth, welled, and overflowed, and fell on the man's breast. Matheson lay still, staring at her, and made no response. "This is the last time we shall meet," she went on quietly, striving after and regaining something of her old composure. "You must not come this way again. It would have been better for us both if you had not come now. Why did you come?" "I did not expect to see you," he replied, and evaded her eyes. "I will tell you," she said. "You are seeking Heinrich--to kill him. You meant to kill him..." "I don't know." He moved uneasily. "I suppose that was it. He's a spy. He has been guilty of the worst form of sedition... I didn't know--how should I?--that--that you--Oh! my God! Honor, I would rather you had died than married him."