Borden followed her, and when they were alone began sadly,
"Miss Baron, perhaps I am going to ask of you far too much, but you
have shown yourself to be an unusually brave girl as well as a kind-
hearted one, Hanfield is an old friend of mine and perhaps I've done
wrong to mislead him. But I didn't and couldn't foresee what has
happened, and I did hope to start him in genuine convalescence,
feeling sure that if he got well he would give up the hope of going
home as a matter of course. So far from succeeding, a fatal disease
has set in--tetanus, lock-jaw. He's dying and doesn't know it. I
can't tell him. I've made the truth doubly cruel, for I've raised
false hopes. He continually talks of home and his pleading eyes stab
me. You can soften the blow to him, soothe and sustain him in
meeting what is sure to come."
"Oh, is there no hope?"
"None at all. He can't live. If you feel that the ordeal would be
too painful--I wouldn't ask it if I hadn't seen in you unexpected
qualities."
"Oh, I must help him bear it; yet how can I? how shall I?"
"Well, I guess your heart and sympathy will guide you.
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