He led her to the gate and opened it. "You must not indulge such weird thoughts," he said, his features set in a mask of tense inner pain. "You must go to bed and try to sleep."
"Sleep!" she laughed, harshly. "I'll have to wake. The happy chickens, ducks, turkeys, and twittering, chirping birds will rouse me at sun- up. I must teach to-morrow. I must answer questions about grammar, history, geography, and arithmetic. I must correct compositions, write on a blackboard with chalk, point to dots on maps, scold little ones, reprove big ones, talk to parents, and through it all think, think, think! I am Dolly Drake. Do you know, Mr. Saunders, the queerest thing to me in all the world is that I am Dolly Drake? Sometimes I pronounce the name in wonder, as if I had never heard it before. I seem to have been a thousand persons in former periods."
"Dolly, listen." Saunders bent till his face was close to hers. "I am your friend. I shall be true to you forever and ever. From now on nothing else on earth can be of so much importance to me as your welfare. To help you shall be my constant aim."
"I know it, dear, sweet friend." The words bubbled from a swelling sob. "And oh, it is sweet and comforting at a time like this! Don't-- don't stop me." And therewith she raised his hand, pressed her lips upon it, and turned quickly away.