. . . the joy I have been hugging to my heart was all a myth—a sham. . . . I was putting myself in his place.". . .
A tremor shakes him; he buries his face deeper in his arms.
"In whose place?" I ask gently. "No one loves me but you, George!"
"No one but me?" he repeats, lifting his haggard face, all blotted and marred with grief and passion. "The man you love does not love you?"
"No," I say, subsiding into a tumbled, miserable heap by his side, while the tears trickle slowly down my pale cheeks. "You love me, George, and he loves somebody else, that is all!"
"Don't cry, darling," he says; "I can't bear it."
Even in this hour of supreme suffering my true, brave lover sets his own bitter grief aside to comfort mine.
"So that is the reason you look so pale and thin? Nell, you are quite sure you love him?"
"Quite—quite sure, George!"
"It is not an idle fancy; you will hold to it?"
"Do you love me?" I ask. "Do you think that you will ever love any one else?"
"You know that I love you; and I am quite certain I shall never love any one else."
"Then, George," I say, piteously, "as you feel for me, so I feel for him, and———"
"I understand," he says; "I know." And a bitter heavy silence falls between us.
"And this man?" he says, waking out of it with a fiery anger that somehow comforts me. Who would not rather see a man swell with rage than bow his head in grief? "Who has worked this misery to you? Who has made you suffer like this? Who has dared?"
