"Poor little hand," he said, laying his own carefully upon it; "how much it has done for others. Oh, if I could only call it mine, it should never know toil again."
He might have raised it to his lips if just then the eyes had not unclosed, as with a start Bessie awoke and looked wonderingly at him for an instant; then, instead of withdrawing her hand from his, she held the other towards him, and raising herself up, cried out: "Oh, Mr. Jerrold, I am so glad! Nothing is half so dreary now that I know you are on the ship, and you will tell Neil it was not my fault that you found me. He may be very angry."
At the mention of Neil a feeling of constraint crept over Grey, and he quietly released his hands from Bessie's lest he should say to her words he ought not to say to one who was plighted to another. And Bessie noticed the change in him, and her lip quivered in a grieved kind of way, as she said: "You thought me dead, and you were sorry just a little?"
"Oh, Bessie," and with a mighty effort Grey managed to control himself, "you will never know how sorry, or how glad I am to find you still alive; but you must not talk to me now. You must rest, so as to go on deck and get some strength and some color back to your cheeks. I promised auntie not to stay long. I will come again by and by."
Drawing the covering around her as deftly as a woman could have done, he went out and left her alone to wonder at his manner. Bessie had never forgotten the words spoken to her in Rome, and which she had said he must never repeat.
Over and over again, at intervals, had sounded in her ears, "I love you with my whole heart and soul, and whether you live or die you will be the sweetest memory of my life." She had not died--she had lived; she had seen him again and found him changed. Perhaps it was better so, she reasoned, and yet she was conscious of a feeling of disappointment or loss, though it was such joy to know he was near her, and that, by and by he would come to her again. And he came after lunch, and the steward carried her on deck and wrapped her in Miss Grey's warm rug, and Grey himself sat down beside her and talked to her of America, and she told him that she was not going to be a burden to her aunt, or even a guest very long, but to work and earn money with which to pay her debts. And Grey let her do most of the talking, and even promised, if he did not succeed in Allington, to see if he could find something for her to do in in Boston.