Yet that was the hand that had slain Alexander Minchin! And Langholm thought of it; and still his own was almost womanly in the tender pity of its touch.
"I want to tell you," the sick lad murmured.

"I wanted to tell her--God knows it--and that alone was why I came to her the moment I could find out where she was.

No--no--not that alone! I am too ill to pretend any more.

It was not all pretence when I let you think it was only passion that drove me down here.

I believe I should have come, even if I had had nothing at all to tell her--only to be near her--as I was this afternoon! But the other made it a duty.