She instantly changed. The flush of anger passed from her face, and
something else came into it. She caught his hand.

"Oh! what can I do, what can I do to help you?" she asked pitifully.
"I did not know you were so ill. Tell me, what can I do?"

He made a gentle, protesting motion of his free arm--he could not speak
yet--while she held and clasped his other hand.

"It's the worst I ever had," he said, after a moment "the very worst!"

He sat down, and again he had a fit of coughing, and the sweat started
out violently upon his forehead and cheek. When his head at last lay
back against the chair, the paroxysm over, a little spot of blood showed
and spread upon his white lips. With a pained, shuddering little gasp
she caught her handkerchief from her bosom, and, running one hand round
his shoulder, quickly and gently caught away the spot of blood, and
crumpled the handkerchief in her hand to hide it from him.

"Oh! poor fellow, poor fellow!" she said. "Oh! poor fellow!"

Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked at him with that look which
is not the love of a woman for a man, or of a lover for a lover, but that
latent spirit of care and motherhood which is in every woman who is more
woman than man. For there are women who are more men than women.

For himself, a new fact struck home in him. For the first time since
his illness he felt that he was doomed. That little spot of blood in
the crumpled handkerchief which had flashed past his eye was the fatal