she had pitied him and cared for him.

He raised himself from his pillows as he took her small, warm, fibrous
hand, and his pallid face brightened into a tearful smile. "Ah!" he
said, drawing a deep breath, "I am so glad to see you again!"

"I am glad to see you too," said Leam with a certain sudden
embarrassment, she did not know why, but it came from something that
she saw in his eyes and could not explain even to herself.

"Are you?" He pressed her hand, which he still held. "It does me good
to hear you say so," he replied.

"I have brought you some flowers," then said Leam, a little coldly,
drawing away her hand, which she hated to have either held or pressed.

He took them with a pleased smile. "Our pretty wild-flowers!" he said
gratefully, burying his face in them, so cool and fresh and fragrant
as they were. "They are like the giver," he added after a pause, "only
not so sweet."

"Do you remember when I persisted to you there were no wild-flowers
in England?" asked Leam, wishing that Alick would not pay her
compliments.

"Do I remember? That was the first time I saw you," cried Alick. "Of
what else have I thought ever since?"

"You like wild-flowers and celandine, do you not?" asked poor Leam,
desperately disturbed. "I found them in the wood as I came here."

"And picked them for me?--up in the corner there by Barton's? I know.
And you went up the lane for them--for me?" he repeated.

"Yes," said Leam.

"For me?" he asked again.

"Why, yes: for whom else could it have been?" answered Leam in the
tone of grave rebuke he knew so well--the tone which always expressed,
"You are stupid."

Alick's lip quivered. "You are so good," he said.

"Am I?" asked Leam seriously.

Then something passed over her face, a kind of gray shadow of
remembrance, and she dropped her eyes. Was she good? and could he
think so?

A silence fell between them, and each knew of what the other was
thinking; then Leam said suddenly, to break that terrible silence,
which she felt was more betraying than even speech would have
been, "I am sorry you have been so ill. How dreadfully ill you have
been!"

"Yes," he said, "I have been bad enough, I believe, but by God's grace
I have been spared."

"It would have been more grace not to have let you get ill in the
beginning," said Leam gravely.

Alick looked distressed. Should he never Christianize this pagan?
"Don't say that, dear," he remonstrated. "We must not call in question