"I suppose you think that I ought to offer to release
Rose?" and his father had answered slowly: "All
I can say is that I should do so -- if I were in your
place."

But now, when he saw her coming towards him,
looking as she always looked, save that something of
the light and brightness which had always been in her
dear face had faded out of it, he knew that he could
say nothing of the sort. This great trouble which
had come on him was her trouble as well as his, and
he knew she was going to take it and to bear it, as he
meant to take it and to bear it.

But Jervis Blake did make up his mind to one thing.
There should be no hurrying of Rose into a hasty
marriage -- the kind of marriage they had planned --
the marriage which was to have taken place a week
before he went back to the Front. It must be his
business to battle through this grim thing alone. It
would be time enough to think of marriage when he
was up and about again, and when he had taught himself,
as much as might be possible, to hide or triumph
over his infirmity.

As she came and sat down quietly by the side of his
bed, on the chair which his father had just left, he
put out his hand and took hers.

"I want to tell you," he said slowly, "that what my
father has just told me was not altogether a surprise.
I've felt rather -- well, rather afraid of it, since Sir
Jacques first examined me. There was something in
the nurses' manner too -- but of course I knew I might
be wrong. I'm sorry now that I didn't tell you."

She still said nothing -- only gripped his hand more
and more tightly.

[[257]]

p256 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p257w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p258

v?