Nevertheless, his face grew thin and his eye heavy and his form bent, as week after week passed, and he came daily to the house, only to be told the same weary thing, that Annie had not asked for him.  The physicians had said that it would be better that she should not see him until she had of her own accord mentioned his name.  Her nerves were still in such a state that any surprise threw her into palpitation and alarm which did not pass off for hours.  No human being could tell how great might be the shock of seeing his face; how much it might recall to her; and whether, if it recalled all, she could bear it.  From the outset George believed the physicians were wrong in this; but he dared not urge his instinct against their knowledge; and he was patient of nature, and so the days went on, on, on; and there was no change except that Annie grew steadily better and our hearts grew steadily sicker and sicker until we almost looked back with longing on the days when we feared she would die.  And yet in every respect, except the memory of her lover, Annie was the same as before.  The closest scrutiny could discover no other change in her, except perhaps that she seemed even gayer than she used to seem, and a shade less tender, but this also was as she had been before she had promised to be George Ware’s wife.

One morning George brought me a small bunch of lovely wild things from the pine woods, Tiarella leaves just tipped with claret color by the early frosts, sprays of Linnea, two or three tiny white maiden’s hair ferns, all tied by a knot of patridge-berry vines thick-set with scarlet berries.

“Give these to Annie for me, will you, dear Helen?” he said, “and observe very carefully how she is affected by them.”

I remembered that it was just one year ago that day, that he had asked her to be his wife, and I trembled to think of what hidden meanings I might be messenger in carrying her this silent token.  But I too felt, as George did, that she was drifting farther and farther away from the memories we desired she should regain; and that no physician’s knowledge could be so true as love’s instinct; and I asked no counsel of any one, but went swiftly to Annie with the leaves in my hand.

“O you darling!  How perfectly lovely,” she exclaimed with a laugh of delight.  “Why these must have come from George’s woods.  Have you been up there?”

“No, dear,” I said, “George brought them for you, this morning.”

“Oh, the good darling!” she exclaimed.  “Is it decided about his going to India?”

I could not repress a little cry of anguish and terror.  A year before, there had been a plan for his going out to India on a mercantile venture, which promised great profit.  It had been given up, partly because his mother felt that she could not live without him, partly because he felt that he could not longer live without Annie.

“What is it, dear?” she said, in her softest, most sympathizing voice, with a little flush of alarm on her pale cheek; “what hurt you? are you ill?  Oh, my poor Helen, you are all worn out with nursing me.  I will nurse you presently.”