Part 44 (1/2)

But there was in it an appeal She could count the times she had wept in her life, very nearly, she had often said that a wo else to do, and there had always been so ical affir to do but to cry The tears which covered her face and fell into her palainst the chair on which she leaned, comforted her in a measure and served to loosen the tension of heraway from hientleness was not so exquisitely strong but that he loved her too well to break the tender barrier She never afterward knehat appeals she reat force to keep him so transfixed and pale

”Oh, you _have_ told ain! Do you think I am deaf or blind, or that I have found you duh, sweet perfectness! Why, there isn't a woman in a million who has known it or even dreamed what such love could mean Why, there hasn't been a day or an hour for ten years that you have not spoken it to me in the most adorable way, in theyou have done, in every foolish, dear thing, I have been so vain as to think that I counted for so in it, that you did it a little for reat passions But I have had you without flaithout a change, without regret Hush!+” she cried, wiping her tears away, ”Hush It's quite safe to let o on The only fear is that _you_ may speak”

The arm which she had held out to keep him from her had fallen upon his shoulder, lay about his neck as he knelt by her chair

”It's been horrible!” she said, shaking her head, ”Horrible--the days and the nights, the days and the nights! There have been times when I could have killed him and killed myself as well But then you've come, and your presence has helped ; because by your silence you told , because by the fact that you didn't speak I understood that you thought I should be brave, and I have been--thanks to you, and I shall be--thanks to you! Oh!”

she cried passionately, ”if you think because I ao back, that I don't see what I a away from, and what you mean, you're cruel, you're cruel!”

Her other hand had found its fellow and they both lay on his shoulders

”I only think of you,” he breathed, ”and of how”

She covered his lips ”Oh, hush, hush, you have told me, in the only way there was to tell I'm too stupid to be able to combine a lover and a husband The day and the hour you spoke I should never have seen ain And that's where it stands; that's how it is, and you know it You loved me because I was like that, and I love you because you are the bravest of the brave There you are!” she cried, and dreay fro her arue conception of what this is for me?” Bulstrode asked

”Oh, I dare say,” she exclai ofhappiness There,” she exclaimed at his face, ”I see you have a neeapon: pity Oh, don't use that againstin the world will cru closely, she drew from him and laid them both on his breast and htly tre, and she was as white as a winter day In the moment of silence they passed like this, she seereat precious pearl, soathered for hiht She seelorious sex, her tenderness, her huh his daze and over his desire, he heard with his finest her cry:

”Jimmy, Jimmy, don't speak, don't speak Ah, if you really lovefrom where he knelt by her chair, Bulstrode went over, stood a second by the chimneypiece, and then took a few paces up and down the roo the real man says to the woman he really loves:

”I want to make you happy, Mary I will do whatever you wish o!”

Bulstrode looked wearily about as though of its own accord a door ht unclose or a portiere lift

”Go where, pray, at this ti for a o to the rector's”

The last of the fire had flared up The fla back in her chair, she waited in a tranced stillness, her eyes on the ashes of the fire She had said her say out, perhaps the man knew it, and as she leaned back in the cushi+ons he sa coht he caht he bent a moment over her, but she did not stir until the cold wind fro of a latch one

Bulstrode came back to the castle Christ an its life slowly, and not all the day's brightness through which he had speeded his motor had yet come into the house Bulstrode, drawn by it, went directly back to the rooh he expected still to find the wouished fire

Two parlortheir skirts and dusters out of the opposite door, a footman at their heels Touches of the inevitable order which reduces an agreeable disarray to the impersonal had already been put to the scene of Jimmy's tenderness, and the curtains draell away fro that entered broadly and fell across the hearth and the fresh-lit fire

Clean logs replaced the cold ashes: the s, and Bulstrode went over to welco blaze The absence of his host, the castle onceof proprietorshi+p in the bright cordial roo up at the portraits of Westboro's in puffs and velvets, Jiences had written brilliant and ae wheels, they had carried off their scandals with the highest of hands, and still held their heads well

They had carved and raped and loved their way down to the present time, and were none the less a proud line of pure British blood The A picturesque or worthy of history circled, looked up at the Dukes of Westboro' ly, and there was not a peer or a noble better to look upon or who had been at heart a truer lover, although he did not know it

During the lapse of ti this same room and his present return, Bulstrode had not tossed on a sleepless bed; he had slept soundly, and during his rest the several dials had called out like bells, their voice, _Utere dum licet_; and finally a real bell had roused him to the fact that it was day, a new day, and that unless he was killed en route to the castle, nothing could keep him from the place and from her

He had no consolation in the fact that the honor and decency of society were by hithened and retained, nor did he plan out the sane, wise project of not seeing her again Nor did he weigh or balance his charge or responsibility There had been a cessation of vibration of any kind, and only one supren reality took possession of the world and of hiht he had breathed in ever since he left her and kne she loved hi in life, he had so felt, could dull or tarnish the glory of her face; nothing, no matter what life held for them both, could efface the touch she had laid upon hih the interval his past life appeared to have been, on through the new and unlived interval to coht she had been, she would look at hiht she had looked

”Heavens!” he ent, cynical Westboro's, ”I ah six paradises just because there happens to be a seventh!”