to repeat what I am saying to
the heart I am speaking to.. I don't know... to stand here and weigh my
words... I don't know, how far or how near. I dare not put into words
the adoration which fills me--or dare I?"

He let himself sink down on a chair by her side.

"Oh, if I might, if I didn't have to be afraid--is it true! Oh, God
bless you, Paula."

"There is nothing now that need keep us apart any longer," said she,
with her hand in his, "whatever may happen I have the right to be happy
once, to live fully in accordance with my being, my desire, and my
dreams. I have never renounced. Even though happiness was not my share,
I have never believed that life was nothing but grayness and duty. I
knew that there are people who are happy."

Silently he kissed her hand.

"I know," she said sadly, "that those who will judge me least harshly
will not envy me the happiness which I shall have in having your love,
but they will also say that I should be satisfied."

"But that would not be enough for me, and you have not the right to send
me away."

"No," she said, "no."

A little later she went upstairs to Elinor.

Elinor slept.

Mrs. Fonss sat down by her bed and looked at her pale child whose
features she could only dimly distinguish under the faint yellow glow of
the night lamp.

For Elinor's sake they would have to wait. In a few days they would
separate from Thorbrogger, go to Nice, and stay there by themselves.
During the winter she would live only that Elinor might regain her
health. But to-morrow she would tell the children what had happened
and what was to be expected. However they might receive the news it was
impossible for her to live with them day in, day out, and yet be almost
separated from them by a secret like this. And they would need time to
get used to the idea, because it would mean a separation between them,
whether greater or smaller would depend on the children themselves. The
arrangement of their lives in so far as it concerned her and him was to
be left entirely to them. She would demand nothing. It was for them to
_give_.

She heard Tage's step in the sitting-room and went to him.

He was so radiant and at the same time so nervous that Mrs. Fonss knew
something had happened, and she had an intuition of what it was.

He sought for an opening to unburden his heart and sat and talked
absent-mindedly of the theater. Not until his mother went over to him
and put her hand on his forehead, f