Then he sent a message to her. It seemed to him that she came as buoyantly as usual onto the verandah where he lay in the dusk. He felt like a sick child as she came up to him and leaned over him and put her arms under him. It was the most comforting thing he had ever felt.
“Val, I did mean to go to Roland’s Mills,” he said miserably.
“I know you did, Dane. I read in the paper what happened. Please get well, and don’t think about it any more. I know you were not lying to me.”
Happily he did not see that it took some resolution to put the tenderness and understanding she did into her voice.
She sat down by him and took his hand and stroked it, and did not attempt to talk. It grew dark. Lee came to the door and asked where they would have the meal.
“Is it too cold for you out here, Val? I want to stay outside.”
“Not at all. I’ll get a coat.”
And afterwards she sat and then lay there with him till two in the morning, keeping the longest and strangest silence she had ever kept with any human being. But he was afraid to be alone, she saw that. Once when she moved he clutched at her fearfully, and that pathetic appeal had given her a strange thrill. Only when she saw that he had gone to sleep did she very carefully work her way out of the hammock, cover him up carefully, and steal inside.
He was much better the next morning and walked in to her as she sat in her study. She got up and kissed him and found that she was really as glad as ever to have him restored to her.
“Valerie, dear, you are very good to me,” he said humbly. “And will you come on the launch with me for
