Then she cried a little hysterically: "He never saw anything like that before.

How he must laugh as he sits there in that room!" As if in reply, the hacking cough came faintly through the time-worn floor.
"That cough's going to kill him, to kill him," she said.
Then, with a little start and with a sort of cry, which she stopped by putting both hands over her mouth, she said to herself, brokenly: "Why shouldn't he--why shouldn't he love me! I could take care of him; I could nurse him; I could wait on him; I could be better to him than any one else in the world.

And it wouldn't make any difference to him at all in the end.

He's going to die before long--I know it.

Well, what does it matter what becomes of me afterwards?
I should have had him; I should have loved him; he should have been mine for a little while anyway.