for the husk in his throat:

"My darling!"

Gyp raised her head and stared at him. Her white face, with eyes
unnaturally dark and large, and hair falling all over it, was strange to
him--the face of grief itself, stripped of the wrappings of form. And he
knew not what to do, how to help or comfort, how to save. He could see
so clearly in her eyes the look of a wild animal at the moment of its
capture, and instinct made him say:

"I lost her just as cruelly, Gyp."

He saw the words reach her brain, and that wild look waver. Stretching
out his arm, he drew her close to him till her cheek was against his,
her shaking body against him, and kept murmuring:

"For my sake, Gyp; for my sake!"

When, with Markey's aid, he had got her to the cab, they took her,
not back to the house, but to the inn. She was in high fever, and soon
delirious. By noon, Aunt Rosamund and Mrs. Markey, summoned by telegram,
had arrived; and the whole inn was taken lest there should be any noise
to disturb her.

At five o'clock, Winton was summoned downstairs to the little so-called
reading-room. A tall woman was standing at the window, shading her eyes
with the back of a gloved hand. Though they had lived so long within ten
miles of each other he only knew Lady Summerhay by sight, and he waited
for the poor woman to speak first. She said in a low voice:

"There is nothing to say; only, I thought I must see you. How is she?"

"Delirious."

They stood in silence a full minute, before she whispered:

"My poor boy! Did you see him--his forehead?" Her lips quivered. "I will
take him back home." And tears rolled, one after the other, slowly down
her flushed face under her veil. Poor woman! Poor woman! She had turned
to the window, passing her handkerchief up under the veil, staring out
at the little strip of darkening lawn, and Winton, too, stared out into
that mournful daylight. At last, he said:

"I will send you all his things, except--except anything that might help
my poor girl."

She turned quickly.

"And so it's ended like this! Major Winton, is there anything
behind--were they really happy?"

Winton looked straight at her and answered:

"Ah, too happy!"

Without a quiver, he met those tear-darkened, dilated eyes straining
at his; with a heavy sigh, she once more turned away, and, brushing her
handkerchief across her face, drew down her veil.

It was not true--he knew from the mutterings of Gyp's fever--but no one,
not even S