Womanly prescience told her that the Surgeon had discovered what seemed to him a fitting opportunity to say that which he had long desired.

Ever since she had been in the hospital he had exerted himself to smooth her path for her, and make her stay there endurable.

There was not a day in which she was not indebted to him for some unobtrusive kindness, delicately and thoughtfully rendered.
While she knew quite well that these courtesies would have been as conscientiously extended to any other woman--young or old--in her position, yet her instincts did not allow her any doubt that there was about them a flavor personal to herself and redolent of something much warmer than mere kindliness.

A knowledge of this had at times tainted the pleasure she felt in accepting welcome little attentions from him.
She dreaded what she knew was coming.

He took her hand and started to speak with tremulous lips.