"
"The fact is," he returned, "I am absorbed in my work. It brings many
grave cares and anxieties. I spend most of my time amid scenes of
suffering and at dying beds. This makes me seem abstracted and cold,
but it does not make you less dear. On the contrary, the sense it
gives me of the brevity and sorrowfulness of life makes you doubly
precious, since it constantly reminds me that sick beds and dying
beds must sooner or later come to our home as to those of others."
I clung to him as he uttered these terrible words In an agony of
terror.
"Oh, Ernest, promise me, promise me that you will not die first," I
pleaded.
Foolish little thing!" he said, and was as silly, for a while, as the
silliest heart could ask. Then he became serious again.
"Katy," he said, "if you can once make up your mind to the fact that
I am an undemonstrative man, not all fire and fury and ecstasy as you
are, yet loving you with all my heart, however it may seem, I think
you will spare yourself much needless pain--and spare me, also."
"But I want, you to be demonstrative," I persisted.
"Then you must teach me. And about my father and sister, perhaps, we
may find some way of relieving you by and by. Meanwhile, try to bear
with the trouble they make, for my sake."
"But I don't mind the trouble! Oh, Ernest, how you do misunderstand
me! What I mind is their coming between you and me and making you
love me less.
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