Before morning Falconer became delirious. He did not rave nor shout, but
he talked incessantly, with his eyes wide open and fixed vacantly, and
his long hand plucking at the bedclothes. Nell stole in from her room,
though she had promised to rest and leave the night duty to the village
nurse, and, sitting beside him, held his hand.
At the touch of her cool fingers he became quiet for a moment or two,
and something like a smile crossed his pain-lined face; but presently he
began again. Sometimes he was back at the Buildings, and he hummed a bar
or two of music while his fingers played on the counterpane as if it
were a piano. Once or twice he murmured her name in a tone which brought
the color to Nell's face and made her heart ache. But it did not need
the whisper of her name to tell her Falconer's secret. She knew that he
loved her, for he had told her so at the moment when Drake had seen them
walking together in the garden.
And as she sat and held his hand, she tried to force her mind from
dwelling on Drake, and to remember the devotion of the stricken man
beside her.
Though he had confessed his love, he had asked for nothing in return. He
had said that he knew that his passion was hopeless, but that he could
not help loving her, that he must continue to do so while life lasted.
"I will never speak of it again," he had said. "You need not be afraid.
I don't know why I told you now; it slipped out before I knew----No,
don't be afraid. All I ask is that you should still look upon me as a
friend, that you will still let me be near you as often as is possible.
It is too much to ask? If so, I will go away--somewhere, and cease to
trouble you with the sight of me!"
And Nell, with tears in her eyes--as Drake had seen--had given him her
hand in silence, for a moment or two, and then, almost inaudibly, had
answered: "I am sorry--sorry! Oh, why did you tell me? No, no; forgive me! But you
must not go. I--I could not afford to lose your--friendship!"
"That you shall not do!" he had said, very quietly, and with a brave
smile. "Please remember that I said I knew there was no hope for me. How
could there be? How could it be possible for you--you!--to care for me?
But a weed may dare to love the sun, Miss Lorton, though it is only a
weed and not a stately flower. I ought not to have told you; but that
little success of mine, and the prospect it has opened out, must have
turned my head. But you have forgiven me, have you not? and you will try
and forget that I was mad enough to show you my heart?"