He did not speak in answer.  He scarcely spoke at all that night.  But his silence satisfied her.

It was not till the following morning that he stretched out a great, bony hand to her as she waited on him, and drew her down to his side.

“There has been enough of this,” he said, with a touch of his old imperiousness.  “You have worked too hard already, harder than I ever meant you to work.  You are to take a rest, and get strong.”

She uttered her gay little laugh.

“My dearest Brett, I am strong.”

He lay staring at her in his most direct, disconcerting fashion.  She endured his look for a moment, and then averted her eyes.  She would have risen, but he prevented her.

“Sybil!” he said abruptly.

“Yes?” she answered, with her head bent.

“Are you afraid of me?” he said.

She shook her head instantly.

“Don’t be absurd!”

“Then look at me!” he said.

She raised her eyes slowly, not very willingly.  But, having raised them, she kept them so, for there was that in his look which no longer made her shy.

He made a slight gesture towards her that was rather of invitation than insistence.

“Don’t you think I’m nearly well enough to be let into the secret?” he said.

His action, his tone, above all his look, broke down the last of the barrier between them.  She went into his arms with a shaky little laugh, and hid her face against him.

“I would have told you long ago,” she whispered, “only somehow—­I couldn’t.  Besides, I was so sure that you knew.”

“Oh, yes, I knew,” said Mercer.  “Curtis saw to that; literally flayed me with it till I took his advice and cleared out.  You know, I’ve often wondered since if it was that that made you want me, after all.”

She shook her head, still with her face against his breast.

“No, dear, it wasn’t.  It—­it made things worse at first.  It was only when I heard you were ill that—­that I found—­quite suddenly—­that I couldn’t possibly go on without you.  It was as if—­as if something bound round my heart had suddenly given way, and I could breathe again.  When I saw you I knew how terribly I wanted you.”

“And that was how you came to kiss me with that loathsome disease upon me?” he whispered.  “That was what made you follow me down to hell to bring me back?”

She turned her face upwards.  Her eyes were shining.

“My dear,” she said, and in her voice was a thrill like the first sweet notes of a bird in the dawning, “you don’t need to ask me why did these things.  For you know—­you know.  It was simply and only because I loved you.”

“Heaven knows why,” he said, as he bent to kiss her.

“Heavens knows,” she answered, and softly laughed as she surrendered her lips to his.

The Secret Service Man