“I’ve thought these many weeks how good you’ve been to me—­how happy you have made my last days, while I have been so bad to you, but you musn’t remember it against me, Arthur boy, when I’m dead and there isn’t any naughty Nina anywhere, neither at the Asylum, nor Grassy Spring, nor here in bed, nothing but a teenty grave, out in the yard, with the flowers growing on it, I say you must not remember the wicked things I’ve done, for it wasn’t the Nina who talks to you now.  It was the buzzing Nina who tore your hair, and scratched your face, and bit your arm.  Oh, Arthur, Nina’s so sorry now; but you musn’t lay it up against me.”

“No, my darling, God forbid that I, who have wronged you so terribly, should remember aught against you,” and Arthur kissed the slender hands which had done him so much mischief.

They were harmless now, those little waxen hands, and they caressed Arthur’s face and hair as Nina went on.

“Arthur boy, there’s one question I must ask you, now there’s nobody to hear, and you will tell me truly.  Do you love me any—­ love me differently from what you did when I was in the Asylum, and if the buzzing all was gone, and never could come back, would you really make me your wife just as other husbands do—­would you let me sit upon your knee, and not wish it was some one else, and in the night when you woke up and felt me close to you would you be glad thinking it was Nina?  And when you had been on a great long journey, and were coming home, would the smoke from the chimney look handsomer to you because you knew it was Nina waiting for you by the hearth-stone, and keeping up the fire?  Don’t tell me a falsehood, for I’ll forgive you, if you answer no.”

“Yes, Nina, yes.  I would gladly take you as my wife if it could be.  My broken lily is very precious to me now, far more so than she used to be.  The right love for her began to grow the moment I confessed she was my wife, and when she’s gone, Arthur will be so lonely.”

“Will you, Arthur boy?  Will you, as true as you live and breathe, miss poor, buzzing Nina?  Oh, I’m so glad, so glad,” and the great tears dimmed the brightness of the blue eyes, which looked up so confidingly at Arthur.  “I, too, have loved you a heap; not exactly as I loved Charlie Hudson, I reckon, but the knowing you are my husband, makes Nina feel kind of nice, and I want you to love me some—­miss me some—­mourn for me some, and then, Arthur, Nina wants you to marry Miggie.  There is no buzzing; no twist in her head.  It will rest as quietly on your bosom where mine has never lain, not as hers will, I mean, and you both will be so happy at last—­happy in knowing that Nina has gone out into the eternal daylight, where she would rather be.  You’ll do it, Arthur; she must not marry Richard, and you must speak to her quick, before she goes home, so as to stop it, for New Year’s is the time.  Will you, Arthur?”

There was an instant of silence in the room—­Nina waiting for Arthur to speak, and Arthur mustering all his strength to answer her as he felt he must.