and looking at my hunting knife, and looking at my
wrist----"

He looked at his wrist now, and her eyes followed his.

"--and if I had thought," Chris presently continued, "that a slash there
might have carried me to some region of peace--where there was no hunger
for Norma--I would not have hesitated! But one isn't sure--more's the
pity!" he finished, smiling with eyes full of pain.

Norma could not speak. The work of long months had been undone in a
short hour, and she was conscious of a world that crashed and tumbled in
utter ruin about her.

"Well, no use now," Chris said. He folded his arms on his chest, and
looked sternly away into space for a minute, and Norma felt his
self-control, his repression, as she would have felt no passionate
outburst of reproach. "But there is one thing that I've wanted for a
long time to tell you, Norma. If you hadn't been such a little girl, if
you had known what life is, you could not have done what you did!"

"I suppose not," she half-whispered, with a dry throat, as he waited for
some sign from her.

"No, you couldn't have given yourself to any one else--if you had
known," Chris went on, as if musing aloud. "And that brings me to what I
want to say. Marriage lasts a long, long time, Norma, and even you--with
all your courage!--may find that you've promised more than you can
perform! The time may come----

"Norma, I hope it won't!" he interrupted himself to say, bitterly. "I
try to hope it won't! I try to hope that you will come to love him, my
dear, and forget me! But if that time does come, what I want you to
remember is this afternoon, and sitting here with me in the car, and
Chris telling you that whenever--or wherever--or however he can serve
you, you are to remember that he is living just for that hour! There
will never be any change in me, Norma, never anything but longing and
longing just for the sight of you, just for one word from you! I love
you, my dear--I can't help it. God knows I've _tried_ to help it. I love
you as I don't believe any other woman in the world was ever loved! So
much that I want life to be good to you, even if I never see you, and I
want you to be happy, even without me!"

He had squared about to face her, and as the passionate rush of words
swept about her, Norma laid her little gloved hand gently upon his big
one, and her blue eyes, drowned in sudden tears, fixed themselves in
exquisite desolation and despair upon his face.

Once or twice