God bless her! You will let me go to her, Gilbert, the instant I am able to travel, as soon as I can drag myself anyhow from this bed to the railway?
You will not stand between me and my love ?" "No, John Saltram; God knows, I have never thought of that." "And you knew I was a traitor--you knew it was my work that had destroyed your scheme of happiness--and yet have been beside me, watching me patiently through this wretched illness ?" "That was a small thing to do You did as much, and a great deal more, for me, when I was ill in Egypt.

It was a mere act of duty." "Not of friendship.

It was Christian charity, eh, Gilbert?
If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; and so on.

It was not the act of a friend ?" "No, John Saltram, between you and me there can never again be any such word as friendship.

What little I have done for you I think I would have done for a stranger, had I found a stranger as helpless and unfriended as I found you.