He stopped at the foot
of the sofa and said a few cheering words. She beckoned to him to come
nearer, and offered him her wasted hand. He tenderly took it in his, and
sat down by her. They were both silent. His face told her of the sorrow
and the sympathy which his silence would fain have concealed. She still
held his hand--consciously now--as persistently as she had held it on
the day when he found her. Her eyes closed, after a vain effort to speak
to him, and the tears rolled slowly over her wan white cheeks.
The doctor signed to Kirke to wait and give her time. She recovered a
little and looked at him. "How kind you have been to me!" she murmured.
"And how little I have deserved it!"
"Hush! hush!" he said. "You don't know what a happiness it was to me to
help you."
The sound of his voice seemed to strengthen her, and to give her
courage. She lay looking at him with an eager interest, with a gratitude
which artlessly ignored all the conventional restraints that interpose
between a woman and a man. "Where did you see me," she said, suddenly,
"before you found me here?"
Kirke hesitated. Mr. Merrick came to his assistance.
"I forbid you to say a word about the past to Mr.
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