r drew its first breath, as if
it had been born but that instant, in an agony of desire and fear.

"To do what?" she said. "Why won't you tell me?"

"I'm afraid," he said simply.

"Afraid of _me_! Why should you be?"

"Because, if you really cared for me, I think you'd know what I want."

"It's because I care so much that I don't know. Unless you tell me."

She put her small fingers lightly on the sleeve of his coat; they slid
till they found his hands that hung clenched before him.

At her touch he trembled.

"Don't you know," she said, "that there's nothing I wouldn't do for you?
Tell me what you want me to do."

He spoke so low that she strained to hear him.

"To marry me--to be my wife."

Her hand still lay on his, but she herself seemed to draw back and
pause.

"Your wife?" she said at last. "My dear, you've only known me ten days."

"It makes no difference."

He took her hand in his and kissed it, bowing his head.

She twisted herself away from him, and drew back her face from his. They
rose.

"Ah," she said, "you're cold. You don't know how. Let me look at you.
It's not me you want. You want a mother for your children."

"Not I. I want you--you--for myself."

She moved toward him with a low cry, and he took her in his arms and
stood still by her without a word. And to his joy, she whom he held
(gently, lest he should hurt her) laid her face to his face, and held
him with a grip tighter than his own, as if she feared that he would
loose himself and leave her. Her eyes closed as he kissed her forehead,
and opened as her mouth found his.

Then she drew herself slowly from him.

"You love me then?" she said.

"Yes, Kitty, I love you."

CHAPTER XII

The awkward thing was telling Jane about it. Jane had been his dead
wife's friend before he married her, and she had known her better then
than she knew Kitty. Yet he remembered, acutely, how he had gone to her
eight years ago, and told her that he was going to marry Amy, and how
she had kissed him and said nothing, and how, when he asked her if she
had any objection, she had said "No, none. But isn't it a little
sudden?"

He wondered how Jane would look when he told her he was going to marry
Kitty. That was bound to strike her as very sudden indeed.

It was wonderful to him that this thing should have happened to him. He
was aware that it was a new thing. Nothing in his previous experience
had prepared him for it. He had been very