th you
like this telling you that--that--"

She broke off, her all but etherealized face paling and growing more
rigid.

He clutched her hands. He held them passionately, desperately to his
breast. "Go on!" he panted. "For God's sake, go on! I am starving for a
word from your lips. I've heard you speak a million times in my dreams.
Night after night I've lived with you in our little cottage, only to
wake and find it a damnable mockery, with nothing but the dull grind of
life before me."

"What I say I would say to Joel's face if I could do so without killing
him." Tilly smiled wistfully. "John, I don't believe a true woman can
love but once in the way I loved you. She can many; she can have
children when she thinks it can bring no harm to her dead lover, but, if
she is a genuine woman, she will exult when that lover rises from the
grave and stands before her again. Dear John, I could take your
suffering face between my hands and kiss your lips as no woman ever
kissed a man's lips before. Yes, I could do it, and I'd die to be able
to do it again, but it is not to be. My body may not love, but my soul
may, and it is an eternal thing, John, and so is your soul. Those
children have a right to the care of a mother who is untainted in the
sight of the world. Their poor, patient, unfortunate father deserves as
clean a wife as the earth can produce. I know you love me-- I know it.
I feel it. I see it. But we've got to part. I believe in God. When I
doubt God I suffer and am forced back to faith by the pain I feel.
Believing in God, I also believe that the greater the cross put upon us
the more patiently it must be borne. My cross is to live without
you--yours is to live without me. But, oh, my heart aches--aches--aches
for you! It seems to me that your burden will be heavier even than mine,
for I have my children and you are all alone. John, John, you are young
yet. Don't you think that if you were to marry some good girl and have
children of your own--"

"No," he broke in, shuddering. "Leave that out! I couldn't do
it--knowing your heart as I now know it."

"I see, I understand, and--yes, I'm glad. Oh, I can't help it, John. I'm
glad. When do you leave here?"

"Very soon now--in a few days."

"How strange, oh, how strange!" she mused, aloud. "And after this--after
this brief moment I am not to see you again, or hear from you--yes, I'll
hear through your mother, for she tells me she is not to leave with you.
How odd t