Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/302

 leave it wounded and senseless, was very grave. He was still weak, and the emotion which the sight of Margaret had roused, together with these painful recollections, gave him a sudden moment of faintness. She placed a chair for him, and by the time she had in a measure controlled the nervous trembling which had come over her, he was himself again.

"The Count tells me you are thinking of leaving soon," he began.

"Yes," said Margaret, looking bravely in his face, with a laugh which had little of merriment, "yes, we must go next week, papa says. You know it is late in the season for us Northerners to linger here, and the fever is at Thebes,—that makes him anxious, naturally."

"Of course," said Robert severely, "quite right, I am sure; it makes me anxious myself." Then, noticing Margaret's look of astonishment, he added: "Not for myself, of course; I have had the fever already, as you know,—but for you."

"It 's very good of you."

"What is good of me?"

"To be anxious about me."

"How can I help it?" this with a look which was a love-poem in itself. "You must take your last look at Atalanta to-day," said Margaret, ignoring the poem, "she is to be boxed to-morrow. She is going to be