“A nice protecting spirit,” gasped Tussie derisively, when he could speak.  “Look at me here, tied down to this bed for heaven knows how long, and not able to do a thing for you.”

“But there’s nothing now to do.  We’re quite comfortable.  We are really.  Do, do believe it.”

“Are you only comfortable, or are you happy as well?”

“Oh, we’re very happy,” said Priscilla with all the emphasis she could get into her voice; and again she tried, quite unsuccessfully, to wrench her mouth into a smile.

“Then, if you’re happy, why do you look so miserable?”

He was gazing up into her face with eyes whose piercing brightness would have frightened the nurse.  There was no shyness now about Tussie.  There never is about persons whose temperature is 102.

“Miserable?” repeated Priscilla.  She tried to smile; looked helplessly at Lady Shuttleworth; looked down again at Tussie; and stammering “Because you are so ill and it’s all my fault,” to her horror, to her boundless indignation at herself, two tears, big and not to be hidden, rolled down her face and dropped on to Tussie’s and her clasped hands.

Tussie struggled to sit up straight.  “Look, mother, look—­” he cried, gasping, “my beautiful one—­my dear and lovely one—­my darling—­she’s crying—­I’ve made her cry—­now never tell me I’m not a brute again—­see, see what I’ve done!”

“Oh”—­murmured Priscilla, in great distress and amazement.  Was the poor dear delirious?  And she tried to get her hands away.

But Tussie would not let them go.  He held them in a clutch that seemed like hot iron in both his, and dragging himself nearer to them covered them with wild kisses.

Lady Shuttleworth was appalled.  “Tussie,” she said in a very even voice, “you must let Miss Neumann-Schultz go now.  You must be quiet again now.  Let her go, dear.  Perhaps she’ll—­come again.”

“Oh mother, leave me alone,” cried Tussie, lying right across his pillows, his face on Priscilla’s hands.  “What do you know of these things?  This is my darling—­this is my wife—­dream of my spirit—­star of my soul—­”

“Never in this world!” cried Lady Shuttleworth, coming round to the head of the bed as quickly as her shaking limbs would take her.

“Yes, yes, come here if you like, mother—­come close—­listen while I tell her how I love her.  I don’t care who hears.  Why should I?  If I weren’t ill I’d care.  I’d be tongue-tied—­I’d have gone on being tongue-tied for ever.  Oh I bless being ill, I bless being ill—­I can say anything, anything—­”

“Tussie, don’t say it,” entreated his mother.  “The less you say now the more grateful you’ll be later on.  Let her go.”

“Listen to her!” cried Tussie, interrupting his kissing of her hands to look up at Priscilla and smile with a sort of pitying wonder, “Let you go?  Does one let one’s life go?  One’s hope of salvation go?  One’s little precious minute of perfect happiness go?  When I’m well again I shall be just as dull and stupid as ever, just such a shy fool, not able to speak—­”