Alice, and Aunt Marianna, other things make it
impossible. You see that, Chris? Yes, I know!"--she interrupted herself
quickly, as Chris protested, "I know what plenty of good people, and the
law, and society generally think. But of course it would mean that we
could not live here for awhile, anyway! No--that's not thinkable!"

"No, that's not thinkable," he agreed, slowly; "I am bound hand and
foot. It isn't only what Alice--as a wife--claims from me. But there are
Acton and Leslie; there is hardly a month that my brother doesn't
propose some plan that would utterly wreck their affairs if I didn't put
my foot down. They're both absolute children in money matters; Judge Lee
is getting old--there's no one to take my place. Your Aunt Marianna,
too; I've always managed everything for her. No; I'm tied."

His voice fell. For awhile they sat silent, in the lingering, cool
spring twilight, while the red glow faded slowly from the river, and
from the opposite banks where houses and roofs showed between the bare
trees.

"But what can we do, Norma? I've tried--I've tried a thousand times, to
see the future, without you. But I simply can't go on living on those
terms. There's nothing--nothing--nothing! I go to the piano, and before
I touch a note, the utter blank futility of it comes over me and sickens
me! It's the same in the office, and at the club; I seem to be only half
alive. If it could be even five years ahead--or ten years ahead--I would
wait. But it's never--never. No hope--nothing to live for! Life is
simply over--only one doesn't die."

The girl had never heard quite this note of despair from him before, and
her heart sank.

"You are young," he said, after a minute, and in a lighter tone, "and
perhaps--some day----"

"No, don't believe that, Chris," Norma said, quietly. And with a gesture
full of pain she leaned her elbow on the table, and pressed her hand
across her eyes. "There will never be anybody else!" she said. "How
could there be? You are the only person--like yourself!--that I have
ever known!"

The simplicity of her words, almost their childishness, made Chris's
eyes smart. He bit his lips, trying to smile.

"It's too bad, isn't it?" he said, whimsically.

Norma flung back her head, swallowing tears. She gathered gloves and
hand-bag, got to her feet. He followed her as she walked across the
darkening porch. They went down to the curving sweep of driveway where
the car waited, the big lighted eyes