I suppose I must take my degree, and so on, but it will all be against the grain.' 'Your feeling will most likely alter when you have thoroughly recovered your health.' 'No, I don't think it will.

Practically my health is all right.

You don't,' he added with a smile, 'regard me as an irresponsible person, whose feeble remarks are to be received with kind allowance ?' 'No, I did not mean that.' He gazed at her, and his face showed a growing trouble.
'You do not take too seriously what I said just now about the weakness of my mind?
It would be horrible if you thought I had worked myself into a state of amiable imbecility, and was incapable henceforth of acting, thinking, or speaking with a sound intellect.

Tell me, say in plain words that is not your way of interpreting me.' He had become very much in earnest.

Raising himself to a position in which he rested on one hand, lie looked straight into her face.
'Why don't you reply?
Why don't you speak ?' 'Because, Mr.Athel, it is surely needless to say that I have no such thought.' 'No, it is not needless; and even now you speak in a way which troubles me.