She had come to read to him for the allotted time; and she threw around his shoulders the scarlet and black Navajo blanket, striped with its splendid zigzags of barbarity. Thus he half sat, half leaned, languid but at ease. In his lap lay one of the letters brought over by the messenger: and though she was midway in a book that engaged his full attention--DAVID COPPERFIELD--his silence and absent look this morning stopped her, and she accused him of not attending. “No,” he admitted; “I am thinking of something else.” She looked at him with that apprehension which he knew. “It had to come,” said he. “And to-day I see my thoughts straighter than I’ve been up to managing since--since my haid got clear. And now I must say these thoughts--if I can, if I can!” He stopped. His eyes were intent upon her; one hand was gripping the arm of his chair. “You promised--” trembled Molly. “I promised you should love me,” he sternly interrupted. “Promised that to myself. I have broken that word.” She shut DAVID COPPERFIELD mechanically, and grew white. “Your letter has come to me hyeh,” he continued, gentle again. “My--” She had forgotten it. “The letter you wrote to tell me good-by. You wrote it a little while ago--not a month yet, but it’s away and away long gone for me.” “I have never let you know--” began Molly. “The doctor,” he interrupted once more, but very gently now, “he gave awdehs I must be kept quiet. I reckon yu’ thought tellin’ me might--” “Forgive me!” cried the girl. “Indeed I ought to have told you sooner! Indeed I had no excuse!” “Why, should yu’ tell me if yu’ preferred not? You had written. And you speak” (he lifted the letter) “of never being able to repay kindness; but you have turned the tables. I can never repay you by anything! by anything! So I had figured I would just jog back to Sunk Creek and let you get away, if you did not want to say that kind of good-by. For I saw the boxes. Mrs. Taylor is too nice a woman to know the trick of lyin’, and she could not deceive me. I have knowed yu’ were going away for good ever since I saw those boxes. But now hyeh comes your letter, and it seems no way but I must speak. I have thought a deal, lyin’ in this room. And--to-day--I can say what I have thought. I could not make you happy.” He stopped, but she did not answer. His voice had grown softer than whispering, but yet was not a whisper. From its quiet syllables she turned away, blinded with sudden tears.