Indeed, if anything, the tone rejoiced
him, for it told a tale she would not have told for realms and
empires. He was ten years older and had lived. "But--forgive me," he
went on, "you are trembling, Miss Angela." She was, and loathed
herself, and promptly denied it. He gravely placed a chair. "You fell
heavily, and it must have jarred you. Please sit down," and stepping
to the _olla_, "let me bring you some water."
She was weak. Her knees, her hands, were shaking as they never shook
before. He had seen her aunt at the hospital. He had left her aunt
there without a moment's delay that he might hasten to see her,
Angela. He was here and bending over her, with brimming gourd of cool
spring water. Nay, more, with one hand he pressed it to her lips, with
the other he held his handkerchief so that the drops might not fall
upon her gown. He was bending over her, so close she could hear, she
thought, the swift beating of his heart. She knew that if what Aunt
Janet had told, and her father had seen, of him were true, she would
rather die than suffer a touch of his hand. Yet one hand had touched
her, gently, yet firmly, as he helped her to the chair, and the touch
she loathed was sweet to her in spite of herself. From the moment of
their first meeting this man had done what no other man had done
before--spoken to her and treated her as a grown woman, with a man's
admiration in his fine blue eyes, with deference in word and chivalric
grace in manner.
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