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222 alone. I shall know better another time. But at least we had yesterday afternoon, and this morning … oh! and part of the evening, too. Did I frighten you very much?" she asked him.

"Before I had time to be frightened you smiled, something of your colour came back. Margaret, that reminds me. Do you mind if I suggest to you that if you were really seedy Dr. Kennedy is comparatively a young man …" She laughed.

"But look how devoted he is!"

"That is why." He spoke a little gravely, and she put her hand in his.

"Jealous!" Her voice was very soft.

"The whole world loves you."

"I don't love the whole world." And when she said this her voice was no longer only soft, it was tenderness itself.

"Thank God!" He kissed her hand.

But returned to his text as a man will. "No, I am not jealous. How could I be? You have honoured me, dowered me beyond all other men. But you are so precious, so supremely and unutterably precious. Margaret, my heart is suddenly shaken. Tell me again. You are not ill, not really ill? When this trying time is over, when I can be with you always…"

"How about those hours I want to myself?" she interrupted.

"When I can be within sound of you, taking care