Why do you pretend? My mother is good--she will
forgive--she will understand--and I am dying. ... I have no need to
tell lies; give me your hand.' I jumped up and ran out of the room.
The old lady, of course, guessed how it was.
"I will not, however, weary you any longer, and to me too, of course,
it's painful to recall all this. My patient passed away the next day.
God rest her soul!" the doctor added, speaking quickly and with a
sigh. "Before her death she asked her family to go out and leave me
alone with her."
"'Forgive me,' she said; 'I am perhaps to blame towards you ... my
illness ... but believe me, I have loved no one more than you ... do
not forget me ... keep my ring.'"
The doctor turned away; I took his hand.
"Ah!" he said, "let us talk of something else, or would you care to
play preference for a small stake? It is not for people like me to
give way to exalted emotions. There's only one thing for me to think
of; how to keep the children from crying and the wife from scolding.
Since then, you know, I have had time to enter into lawful wedlock, as
they say... Oh ... I took a merchant's daughter--seven thousand for
her dowry.
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