He dared say nothing, for he did not altogether understand.  “I have those fears, too, sometimes,” she went on; “I have had them when I was with you, but more often when I was alone.  They come to me suddenly, and I have such eager longings to run to you and tell you of them, and ask you to drive them away.  But I never did it; I kept them to myself.”

“You could keep something back from me, Grizel?”

“Forgive me,” she implored; “I thought they would distress you, and I had such a desire to bring you nothing but happiness.  To bear them by myself seemed to be helping you, and I was glad, I was proud, to feel myself of use to you even to that little extent.  I did not know you had the same fears; I thought that perhaps they came only to women; have you had them before?  Fears,” she continued, so wistfully, “that it is too beautiful to end happily?  Oh, have you heard a voice crying, ’It is too beautiful; it can never be’?”

He saw clearly now; he saw so clearly that he was torn with emotion.  “It is more than I can bear!” he said hoarsely.  Surely he loved her.

“Did you see me die?” she asked, in a whisper.  “I have seen you die.”

“Don’t, Grizel!” he cried.

But she had to go on.  “Tell me,” she begged; “I have told you.”

“No, no, never that,” he answered her.  “At the worst I have had only the feeling that you could never be mine.”

She smiled at that.  “I am yours,” she said softly; “nothing can take away that—­nothing, nothing.  I say it to myself a hundred times a day, it is so sweet.  Nothing can separate us but death; I have thought of all the other possible things, and none of them is strong enough.  But when I think of your dying, oh, when I think of my being left without you!”

She rocked her arms in a frenzy, and called him dearest, darlingest.  All the sweet names that had been the child Grizel’s and the old doctor’s were Tommy’s now.  He soothed her, ah, surely as only a lover could soothe.  She was his Grizel, she was his beloved.  No mortal could have been more impassioned than Tommy.  He must have loved her.  It could not have been merely sympathy, or an exquisite delight in being the man, or the desire to make her happy again in the quickest way, or all three combined?  Whatever it was, he did not know; all he knew was that he felt every word he said, or seemed to feel it.

“It is a punishment to me,” Grizel said, setting her teeth, “for loving you too much.  I know I love you too much.  I think I love you more than God.”

She felt him shudder.

“But if I feel it,” she said, shuddering also, yet unable to deceive herself, “what difference do I make by saying it?  He must know it is so, whether I say it or not.”

There was a tremendous difference to Tommy, but not of a kind he could explain, and she went on; she must tell him everything now.