on to the very end. It may be help is nearer than you think."

"But if I don't want help?" he said. "If it would be more merciful to
let me go?"

Again she was silent.

"You know," he said, "life hasn't many inducements. I've put up a fight
for it because I gave my promise to Nap before he went. But it isn't good
enough to keep on. I can't win through. The odds are too great."

"Do you think Nap would let you stop fighting?" she said.

He smiled again faintly. "I suppose--if he were here--I should subsist on
his vitality for a little while. But the end would be the same. Even he
can't work miracles."

"Don't you believe in miracles?" Anne said.

He looked at her interrogatively.

"Mr. Errol," she said, "I am going to remind you of something that I
think you have forgotten. It was Dr. Capper who told me. It was when you
were recovering consciousness after the operation. You sent me a message.
'Tell Anne,' you said, 'I am going to get well.'" She paused a moment,
looking at him very steadily. "I don't know why exactly you sent that
special message to me, but I have carried it in my heart ever since."

She had moved him at last. She saw a faint glow spread slowly over the
tired face. The heavy eyes opened wide to meet her look.

"Did I say that?" he said. "Yes, I had forgotten."

He was silent for a little, gazing full at her with the eyes of one
suddenly awakened.

She lowered her own, and bent her face to the violets. Though she had
spoken so quietly it had not been without effort. She had not found
it easy. Nor did she find his silence easy, implicitly though she
trusted him.

Perhaps he understood, for when he spoke at length there was in his
voice so reassuring a gentleness that on the instant her
embarrassment passed.

"Anne," he said, "do you really want me to get well? Would such a miracle
make much difference to you?"

"It would make all the difference in the world," she answered earnestly.
"I want it more than anything else in life."

With the words she raised her eyes, found his fixed upon her with an
expression so new, so tender, that her heart stirred within her as a
flower that expands in sudden sunshine, and the next moment his hand lay
between her own, and all doubt, all hesitation had fled.

"But, my dear," he said, "I always thought it was Nap. Surely it was
Nap!"

She felt as if something had stabbed her. "No, never!" she said
passionately. "Never! It might have been--once--before