l,
so fleshless, appeared her figure, that it seemed to me I could see
through it to the shining of the flames before which she stood.

"I can't talk, Sally," I said, "I am not good at words, I believe I'm
more than half a fool as George has just told me--but--but--I want
you--I've always wanted you--I've never in my heart wanted anything in
the world but you--"

"I don't suppose even that matters much," she answered wearily, "but if
you care to know, Ben, George and Bonny found me when I was alone
and--and very unhappy, and they brought me with them when they came down
to hunt. They are hunting now."

"You were alone and unhappy?" I said, for George Bolingbroke and Bonny
Marshall had faded from me into the region of utterly indifferent
things.

"It was that I wanted to tell you the morning you couldn't wait," she
returned gently; "I had kept it from you the night before because I saw
that you were so tired and needed sleep. But--but I had seen two
doctors, both had told me that I was ill, that I had some trouble of the
spine, that I might be an invalid--a useless invalid, if I lived,
that--that there would never be another child--that--"

Her voice faltered and ceased, for crossing the room with a bound, I had
gathered her to my breast, and was bending over her in an intensity, a
violence of love, crushing back her hands on her bosom, while I kissed
her face, her throat, her hair, her dress even, as I had never kissed
her in the early days of our marriage. The passion of happiness in that
radiant prime was pale and bloodless beside the passion of sorrow which
shook me now.

"Stop, stop, Ben," she said, struggling to be free, "let me go. You are
hurting me."

"I shall never stop, I shall never let you go," I answered, "I shall
hold you forever, even if it hurts you."

CHAPTER XXXV

THE ULTIMATE CHOICE

We carried her home next day in George's motor car, ploughing with
difficulty over the heavy roads, which in a month's time would have
become impassable. A golden morning had followed the rain; the sun shone
clear, the wind sang in the bronzed tree-tops, and on the low hills to
the right of us, the harvested corn ricks stood out illuminated against
a deep blue sky. When the brown-winged birds flew, as they sometimes
did, across the road, her eyes measured their flight with a look in
which there was none of the radiant impulse I had seen on that afternoon
when she gazed after the flying swallows. She