which there was no
sound about them but the murmur of the brook, the humming of insects,
and the whisper of the summer wind through millions of trees.

He reverted to Maggie Clare, the timbre of his voice again growing
harder. "What's the matter with her?"

She was singularly gentle. "I suppose it could be described most
accurately as a broken heart."

He flushed hotly. "Oh, don't say that," he cried, as if he had been
stung.

"I shouldn't say it if it didn't answer your question."

"_I_ didn't break her heart," he declared, in sharp aggressiveness of
self-defense.

"Oh no. Even she doesn't think so. The poor thing hasn't much mind left,
as you know; but what she has is concentrated on that point--that you
were not to blame in anything. Please don't think that I'm in any way
hinting at such an accusation."

He looked at her stupidly. "Then if her heart's broken, what's broken
it?"

"The circumstances, I suppose. You don't seem to understand that the
poor soul must long ago have reached a point where her love for you was
absolutely the only thing she had."

Again he seemed to shake himself, as though to rid his body of something
that had fastened on it. "I never _asked_ her to love me like that. I
never _wanted_ it."

She smiled, faintly and sweetly. "Oh, well, that wouldn't make any
difference. Love gives itself. It doesn't wait for permission. I should
think you'd have known that."

He leaned forward, an arm resting on one knee. While he reflected he
broke into the tuneless, almost inaudible, whistling Edith used to know
so well. "I said I'd never see her again," he muttered, as the result of
his meditation.

"May I ask if that was a promise to any one, or if it was something you
just said to yourself and about which you'd have a right to change your
mind?"

He continued to mutter. "I said it to--to my wife."

"As a promise? Please forgive me for asking. I shouldn't, only that the
request of a dying woman--"

"I said it," he admitted, unwillingly; "but it wasn't exactly a promise.
My wife said--" He stopped and bit his lip. "She said she didn't care."

"You can't go by that. Of course she did care."

"Then if she cared, I'd let twenty women die, whoever they were--"

She rose with dignity. "That must be for you to decide, Mr. Walker. I've
given you the message I was charged with. It isn't a matter in which I
could venture to urge you."

He, too, rose. "You do urge me," he said in a tone of co