m, and put up her arms to draw her
friend down for the kiss of forgiveness which she knew would not be
denied.

Afterwards she sat up in bed, and brushed her hair back from her
throbbing forehead with her palms.

"Oh, it aches and aches--_so!_" she said.

"I'll bind a cold towel around it, dear; that always used to ease it,
you remember?"

"Not my head, Frances--my heart, my heart!"

It was better so, Frances understood. Penitence that brings only a
headache is like plating over brass; it cannot long conceal the
baseness of the thing that lies beneath.

"Time is the only remedy for that, Nola," she said, her own words slow
and sad.

"Do you think I've sinned past forgiveness because I--because--I love
him?" Nola's voice trembled with earnestness.

"He is free, to love and be loved as it may fall, Nola. I told you he
was mine, but I thought then that I was claiming him from death. He
will live. He never has asked me to marry him; maybe he never will.
When he recovers, he may turn to you--who can tell?"

"No, it's only you that he thinks of, Frances. When I was watching by
him he opened his eyes, and you should have seen the look in them when
he saw me instead of you. He struggled to sit up and look for you, and
he called your name, sharp and frightened, as if he thought somebody
had taken you away from him forever."

Frances did not need that assurance to quiet any fear of his loyalty.
She had spoken the truth, only because it was the truth, but not to
give Nola hope. For hope she knew there was not any, nor any love, to
come to Nola out of that man's heart.

"We'll not talk of it," Frances said.

"I must, I can't let anything stand between us, Frances. If I'd been
fair, all the way through--but I wasn't. I wasn't fair about Major
King, and I wasn't fair this time. I was fool enough to think that if
you were out of the way for a little while I could make him love me!
He'd never love me, never in a million years!"

Frances said nothing. But she was beginning to doubt the sincerity of
Nola's repentance. There, under the shadow of her bereavement, she
could think of nothing but the hopelessness of love.

"But I didn't want you to come up just to pet me and be good to me,
Frances--I wanted to give you something."

Nola felt under her pillow, and groped for Frances' hand, in which she
placed a soft something with a stub of a feather in it.

"I have no right to keep it," said Nola. "Do you know what it is?