m about my waist.

"Miss Dement, are you ill?" he said.

It was not an exclamation; there was neither alarm nor solicitude in it.
If he had added: "I suppose that is about what I am expected to say," he
would hardly have expressed his sense of the situation more clearly. His
manner filled me with shame and indignation, for I was suffering
acutely. I wrenched my hand out of his, grasped the arm supporting me
and pushing myself free, fell plump into the sand and sat helpless. My
hat had fallen off in the struggle and my hair tumbled about my face and
shoulders in the most mortifying way.

"Go away from me," I cried, half choking. "O _please_ go away, you--you
Thug! How dare you think _that_ when my leg is asleep?"

I actually said those identical words! And then I broke down and sobbed.
Irene, I _blubbered_!

His manner altered in an instant--I could see that much through my
fingers and hair. He dropped on one knee beside me, parted the tangle of
hair and said in the tenderest way: "My poor girl, God knows I have not
intended to pain you. How should I?--I who love you--I who have loved
you for--for years and years!"

He had pulled my wet hands away from my face and was covering them with
kisses. My cheeks were like two coals, my whole face was flaming and, I
think, steaming. What could I do? I hid it on his shoulder--there was no
other place. And, O my dear friend, how my leg tingled and thrilled, and
how I wanted to kick!

We sat so for a long time. He had released one of my hands to pass his
arm about me again and I possessed myself of my handkerchief and was
drying my eyes and my nose. I would not look up until that was done; he
tried in vain to push me a little away and gaze into my face. Presently,
when all was right, and it had grown a bit dark, I lifted my head,
looked him straight in the eyes and smiled my best--my level best, dear.

"What do you mean," I said, "by 'years and years'?"

"Dearest," he replied, very gravely, very earnestly, "in the absence of
the sunken cheeks, the hollow eyes, the lank hair, the slouching gait,
the rags, dirt, and youth, can you not--will you not understand? Gunny,
I'm Dumps!"

In a moment I was upon my feet and he upon his. I seized him by the
lapels of his coat and peered into his handsome face in the deepening
darkness. I was breathless with excitement.

"And you are not dead?" I asked, hardly knowing what I said.

"Only dead in love, dear. I recovered from the road