"You cannot be angry with me now," he continued. "You might have been had I told you sooner. I know I have been very presumptuous, very daring, but I could not help it. You stole my heart unconsciously. I loved you in those dark days when you lived in the little cottage at St. Goram. I wanted to help you then. And oh, Ruth, I have loved you ever since--not with the blind, unreasoning passion of youth, but with the deep, abiding reverence of mature years. My love for you is the sweetest, purest, strongest thing I have ever cherished; and now that I am going hence the impulse became so strong that I could not resist telling you." She turned to him suddenly, her eyes swimming in tears. "Oh, William----" Then her voice faltered. "You are not angry with me, Ruth?" he questioned, almost in a whisper. "Angry with you? Oh, William----But why did you not tell me before?" "I was afraid to tell you, Ruth--afraid to put an end to our friendship." She knelt down on the floor by his bedside and laid her face on his hand, and he felt her hot tears falling like rain. For awhile neither of them spoke again; then she raised her head suddenly, and with a pitiful smile on her face she said-- "You must not die, William!" "Not die?" he questioned. "No, no! For my sake you must get better," and she looked eagerly and earnestly into his eyes, as though she would compel assent to her words. "Why for your sake?" he asked slowly and musingly. "Why? Oh, William, do you not understand? Can you not see----" "Surely--surely," he said, a great light breaking over his face, "you cannot mean that--that----" "But I do mean it," she interrupted. "How could I mean anything else?" He half rose in bed, as if inspired with new strength, then lay back again with a weary and long-drawn sigh. She rose quickly to her feet, and bent over him with a little cry. A pallor so deathly stole over his face that she thought he was dying. After a few moments he rallied again, and smiled reassuringly. Then the nurse came back into the room. "You will come again?" he whispered, holding out his hand. She answered him with a smile, and then hurried down the stairs. She gave no hint to Ralph of what had passed between them, and during the journey home through the darkness very little was said; but she walked with a more buoyant step than during the outward journey, and in her eye there was a brighter light, though Ralph did not see it. She scarcely slept at all that night. She spent most of the time on her knees in prayer. Before Ralph got down to breakfast she had been to Veryan and back again. She did not allude, however, to this second journey. William was still alive, and in much the same condition.