n hour?" he asked, looking up at her, "it was ten
when I stopped at the hill."
"Come, Dick," she said again, "we'll talk another time, I can't trust
myself just now. I was going to your mother's."
But Dick remained kneeling in the grass where he was. It seemed to him
as if he had been in some strange land remote from this common life, and
he shrank from contact with the ordinary day and its ordinary doings.
"I can't, Margaret," he said. "You go. Let me fight it out."
She knew too well where he was. "No, Dick, I will not leave you here.
Come, do." She went quickly to him, kneeled down, put her arms about his
neck and kissed him. "Help me, Dick," she whispered.
It was the word he needed. He threw his arms about her, kissed her once,
and then, as if seized with a frenzy of passion, he kissed, again and
again, her hair, her face, her hands, her lips, murmuring in hoarse,
passionate tones, "I love you! I love you!" For a few moments she
suffered him, and then gently pushed him back and drew apart from him.
Her action recalled him to himself.
"Forgive me, Margaret," he cried brokenly, "I'm a great, selfish brute.
I think only of myself. Now I'm ready to go. And when I weaken again,
don't think me quite a cad."
He sprang up, threw back his shoulders as if adjusting them to a load,
gave her his hand, and lifted her up, and together they set off down the
lane, the shadow a little lighter as each felt the other near.
X
FOR A LADY'S HONOUR
"Are you going to Trinity convocation tomorrow?" asked Dr. Bulling of
Iola.
They were sitting in what Iola called her studio. A poor little room it
was, but suggesting in every detail the artistic taste of its occupant.
Its adornments, the luxurious arrangement of cushions in the cosey
corner, the prints upon the walls, and the books on the little table,
spoke of a pathetic attempt to reproduce the surroundings of luxurious
art without the large outlay that art demands. At one side of the room
stood a piano with music lying carelessly about. In another corner was
Iola's guitar, which she seldom used now except when intimate friends
gathered for one of the little suppers she loved to give. Then she took
it up to sing the mammy songs of her childhood. On the side opposite
to that on which the piano stood was a little fireplace. It was the
fireplace that had determined the choice of the room.
As Dr. Bulling asked his question Iola's lace lit up with a sudden
splen
|