Then, standing before him with such an air of patient entreaty that
he could not choose but look at her, she said:

"If you should want me, I will come back willingly. When you did
want me, I was quite happy to come; there was no merit in it. I
think you must be afraid, that, now you are getting well, I may be
troublesome to you; but I should not have been, indeed. I should
have come no longer than your weakness and confinement lasted. You
owe me nothing; but it is right that you should deal as justly by
me as if I was a lady--even the very lady that you love; and if you
suspect me of meanly making much of the little I have tried to do
to comfort your sick room, you do yourself more wrong than ever you
can do me. That is why I am sorry. That is why I am very sorry."

If she had been as passionate as she was quiet, as indignant as she
was calm, as angry in her look as she was gentle, as loud of tone
as she was low and clear, she might have left no sense of her
departure in the room, compared with that which fell upon the
lonely student when she went away.

He was gazing drearily upon the place where she had been, when
Redlaw came out of his concealment, and came to the door.

"When sickness lays its hand on you again," he said, looking
fiercely back at him, "--may it be soon!--Die here! Rot here!"

"What have you done?" returned the other, catching at his cloak.
"What change have you wrought in me? What curse have you brought
upon me? Give me back MYself!"