t relax
his hold. Actually a deep wave of satisfaction seemed to go lapping
through him.

"I don't feel badly, dear," he said, smoothing back her hair. "You know,
I shall suffer hardly any pain; but I do feel very tired."

"In what way tired?" Another alarm was in her voice.

"Bodily fatigue, dear. Of course, one doesn't die without fading."

He felt, when he had said it, that the words, in spite of his care, were
cruel; that she would feel them as cruel; he had gone too fast; had
tried to grasp at his immunity too hastily.

"Nicholas!" she gasped. "You speak as if I were accusing you!"

"Accusing me, darling! How could you be! Of what?"

"Oh, Nick," she sobbed, hiding her face on his breast,--"Am _I_ tiring
you? Do you sometimes want me to go away and to leave you more alone?"

His heart stood still. Over her bowed head he looked at the sunlit trees
and flowers, the hazy glory of the summer day, a phantasmagoric setting
to this knot of human pain and fear, and he said to himself that unless
he were very careful he might hurt her irremediably; he might rob her of
the memory that was to beautify everything when he was gone.

He had found in a moment, he felt sure, just the right quiet tone,
expressing a comprehension too deep for the fear of any misunderstanding
between them. "There would be no me left, Kitty, if you went away. I am
you--all that there is of me. You are life itself; don't talk of robbing
me of any of it; I have so little left."

She was silent for a moment, not lifting her face, no longer weeping.
Then in a voice curiously hushed and controlled she said: "How quiet you
are; how peaceful you are--how terribly peaceful."

"You want me to be at peace, don't you, dear?"

"You don't mind leaving life. You don't mind leaving me," she said.

"Kitty--Kitty----"

She interrupted his protest: "I've nothing to give you but love; I've
never had anything to give you but love. And you are tired of that. You
are going, you are going for ever. I shall never see you again. And you
don't mind! You don't mind!" She broke into dreadful sobs.

Helpless and tormented he held her, trying to soothe, to reassure, to
convince, recovering, even, in the vehemence of his pity, the very tones
of passionate love, the personal note that her quick ear had felt
fading. She sobbed, and sobbed, but answered him at last, in the
pathetic little child language of their first honeymoon that they had
revived and enriched with n