"Did you see me die?" she asked, in a whisper. "I have seen you die."

"Don't, Grizel!" he cried.

But she had to go on. "Tell me," she begged; "I have told you."

"No, no, never that," he answered her. "At the worst I have had only
the feeling that you could never be mine."

She smiled at that. "I am yours," she said softly; "nothing can take
away that--nothing, nothing. I say it to myself a hundred times a day,
it is so sweet. Nothing can separate us but death; I have thought of
all the other possible things, and none of them is strong enough. But
when I think of your dying, oh, when I think of my being left without
you!"

She rocked her arms in a frenzy, and called him dearest, darlingest.
All the sweet names that had been the child Grizel's and the old
doctor's were Tommy's now. He soothed her, ah, surely as only a lover
could soothe. She was his Grizel, she was his beloved. No mortal could
have been more impassioned than Tommy. He must have loved her. It
could not have been merely sympathy, or an exquisite delight in being
the man, or the desire to make her happy again in the quickest way, or
all three combined? Whatever it was, he did not know; all he knew was
that he felt every word he said, or seemed to feel it.

"It is a punishment to me," Grizel said, setting her teeth, "for
loving you too much. I know I love you too much. I think I love you
more than God."