Then at last came a morning when John opened his eyes and watched the pale earnest face bending over him as though he were trying to remember something.
Presently he shut them again.

He had remembered.
"I have been very ill, Jess," he said after a pause.
"Yes, John." "And you have nursed me ?" "Yes, John." "Am I going to recover ?" "Of course you are." He closed his eyes again.
"I suppose there is no news from outside ?" "No more; things are just the same." "Nor from Bessie ?" "None: we are quite cut off." Then came a pause.
"John," said Jess, "I want to say something to you.

When people are delirious, or when delirium is coming on, they sometimes say things that they are not responsible for, and which had better be forgotten." "Yes," he said, "I understand." "So," she went on, in the same measured tone, "we will forget everything you may fancy that you said, or that I did, since the time when you came in wounded and found that I had fainted." "Quite so," said John.

"I renounce them all." "_We_ renounce them all," she corrected, and gave a solemn little nod of her head and sighed, and thus they ratified that audacious compact of oblivion.
But it was a lie, and they both knew that it was a lie.

If love had existed before, was there anything in his helplessness and her long and tender care to make it less?
Alas! no; rather was their companionship the more perfect and their sympathy the more complete.