rom
hollow, blue-veined temples, the sharpened, angular outlines, and an
old, suffering look about the mouth and sunken eyes.

Few words were spoken--nothing beyond the most commonplace greetings.
Then she said:

'I should have come to you, but I have been ill myself; near death, I
believe,' she added, wearily.

She gave the explanation with no throb of feeling. She would have
apologized for a careless dress with more spirit once.

He rose and laid a packet before her.

'A lady's handkerchief--yours, I think. I was with him when he died,
though his body was not found afterward. I was hurt myself, you know,
and could not attend to it,' he said, deprecatingly.

She did not touch it, looking from it up to him with eyes filled with
just such a grieved, questioning look as might come into the eyes of
some animal dying in torture. He could not endure it. He put out his
white, wasted left hand.

'My poor child!' She shivered, caught her breath with a sob, and,
burying her face in the pillows of a couch, gave way to her first tears
in an agony of weeping. And he sat apart, not daring to touch her, nor
to speak--wishing, with unavailing bitterness, that it had been he who
was left lying stark and still beneath the cedars.

The storm passed. She lay quiet now, all but the sobs that shook her
whole slight frame. He said, at last, very gently:

'If I had known--you should have told me. He was my best friend.' His
voice trembled a little. 'I know how I must seem to you. His murderer,
perhaps; surely the murderer of your happiness.' A deeper quaver in the
sorrowful tones. 'It is too late now, I know; but if it would help you
ever so little to be released from your promise--'

There was no reply.

'You are free. I am going now.' He bent over her for a breath, making a
heart picture of the tired face, the closed eyes, and grieved mouth.
Only to take her up for a moment, with power to comfort her--he would
have given his life for that--and turned away with a great, yearning
pain snatching at his breath. In the hall he paused a moment, trying to
think. A light step, a frail hand on his arm, a wistful face lifted to
his.

'Forgive me; I have been very unkind. You are so good and noble. I will
be your wife, if you will be any happier.'

He looked down at her pityingly. 'You are very tired. Shall you say that
when you are rested again? Remember, you are free.'

'If not yours, then never any one's.'

His arm fell about he