something
to tell you. Promise."

"I promise."

"I am going to have pneumonia, or I have it now. You are not
frightened?"

Her eyes answered for her.

"I had a cold. I had taken something to throw me into a sweat--that was
the night after I saw you."

At the thought of their last interview, he took her hand again and
pressed it to his lips, looking tenderly at it.

"The dogs were killing the sheep, and I got up and went out while I was
in a perspiration. I know it's pneumonia. I have had a long, hard
chill. My head feels like it would burst, and there are other symptoms.
This lung! It's pneumonia. One of the Bible college students had it. I
helped to nurse him. Oh, he got well," he said, shaking his head at her
with a smile, "and so will I!"

"I know it," she murmured, "I'm sure of it."

"What I want to ask is, Will you stay with me?"

"Ah, nothing could take me from you."

"I don't want you to leave me. I want to feel that you are right here
by me through it all. I have to tell you something else: I may be
delirious and not know what is going on. I have sent for the doctor.
But there is a better one in Lexington. You try to get him to come. I
know that he goes wherever he is called and stays till the danger is
past or--or--till it is settled. Don't spare anything that can be done
for me. I am in danger, and I must live. I must not lose all the
greatness of life and lose you."

"Ah," she implored, seeing how ill he was. "Everything that can be done
shall be done. Now oughtn't you to be quiet and let me make you
comfortable till the doctor comes?"

"I must say something else while I can, and am sure. I might not get
over this--"

"Ah--"

"Let me say this: I MIGHT not! If I should not, have no fear about the
future; I have none; it will all be well with ME in Eternity."

He lay quiet a moment, his face turned off. She had buried hers on the
bed. The flood of tears would come. He turned over, and seeing it laid
his hand on it very lightly.

"If it be so, Gabriella, I hope all the rest of your life you will be
happy. I hope no more trouble will ever come to you."

Suddenly he sat up, lifted her head, and threw his arms around her
again. "Oh, Gabriella!" he cried, "you have been all there is to me."

"Some day," he continued a moment later, "if it turns out that way,
come over here to see my father and mother. And tell them I left word
that perhaps they had never quite understood me and so had never