Her eyes were bright with tears, brimming with love. The rest of a lifetime. How much longer did he have? A few weeks? A few days? And yet, weak as he felt, he did not feel ill. He should, shouldn't he? He had tuberculosis- consumption. Didn't he?

"How long have we been married?" he asked her.

She looked frightened for a moment. Perhaps she thought he was delirious. Then she smiled. She had a dimple in the middle of her right cheek. It had been there since she was a child-How did he know that?

"For shame," she said. "Have you forgotten the number of days? But it was a long journey for you-four days, with the wedding just the day before we set out. It has been five days and four hours, sir. We are an old married couple."

Yes, he knew how long they had been married. He had remembered as soon as he asked the question. He knew, too, that the marriage was unconsummated, that she fully expected it would forever remain so. She had married him anyway.

"I love you," he whispered to her.

Her eyes filled with tears again. "Yes, I know you do, John," she said, "even if not quite as you would have loved a bride if you had had more opportunity to choose. But I know you love me. I am content."

Had he ever given her the impression that he did not love her totally, to the exclusion of all other women? He knew he had. He knew it as soon as he asked the question, silently this time. He had always loved her as a friend. He had loved her, too, as a woman, though there had always been a niggling doubt. Was it just habit that made him believe that he loved her? Did he really love her? Was he prepared to give up all other women in order to spend the rest of his life with her?

Finally the question had become immaterial. He was dying. He had come back from Italy to find her still unmarried at the age of twenty-four, still waiting for him, still loving him. And so he had married her.