“I can’t think, I tell you.  I can’t think as long as you lie there on the rug.  And your eyes blaze so.  They feel just like balls of fire.”

“Please sit down, Peter.  Please?  For my sake.  Here.  Here is the chair.  Please sit down.”

Peter sank back in the chair.  “I tell you I can’t think.  They do nothing but burn.  It’s the petroleum!” He started forward, but a slender arm arrested his attempt to rise, and he sank back again as if it had some power over him.

“Hyah, miss.  Foh de lub ub heaben, put some ub dis yar on he eyes,” said Jenifer, who had appeared with a bottle, and was blubbering enough to supply a whole whaling fleet.  “De doctor he done give dis yar foh de Aspic nerve.”  Which is a dish that Jenifer must have invented himself, for it is not discoverable even on the fullest of menus.

Leonore knelt in front of Peter, and, drenching her fingers with the wash, began rubbing it softly over his eyes.  It has always been a problem whether it was the remedy or the ends of those fingers which took those lines of suffering out of Peter’s face and made him sit quietly in that chain Those having little faith in medicines, and much faith in a woman’s hands, will opine the latter.  Doctors will not.

Sufficeth it to say, after ten minutes of this treatment, during which Peter’s face had slowly changed, first to a look of rest, and then to one which denoted eagerness, doubt and anxiety, but not pain, that he finally put out his hands and took Leonore’s.

“You have come to me,” he said, “Has he told you?”

“Who?  What?” asked Leonore.

“You still think I could?” cried Peter.  “Then why are you here?” He opened his eyes wildly and would have risen, only Leonore was kneeling in front of the chair still.

“Don’t excite yourself, Peter,” begged Leonore.  “We’ll not talk of that now.  Not till you are better.”

“What are you here for?” cried Peter.  “Why did you come—?”

“Oh, please, Peter, be quiet.”

“Tell me, I will have it.”  Peter was exciting himself, more from Leonore’s look than by what she said.

“Oh, Peter.  I made papa bring me—­because—­Oh!  I wanted to ask you to do something.  For my sake!”

“What is it?”

“I wanted to ask you,” sobbed Leonore, “to marry her.  Then I shall always think you were what I—­I—­have been loving, and not—­” Leonore laid her head down on his knee, and sobbed bitterly.

Peter raised Leonore in his arms, and laid the little head on his shoulder.

“Dear one,” he said, “do you love me?”

“Yes,” sobbed Leonore.

“And do you think I love you?”

“Yes.”

“Now look into your heart.  Could you tell me a lie?”

“No.”

“Nor can I you.  I am not the father of that boy, and I never wronged his mother.”

“But you told—­” sobbed Leonore.

“I lied to your mother, dear.”