Chapter 15

She had been alternately desiring and fearing this moment, until her excitement was almost beyond control. The sculptor led her on board the steamer, and together they descended to the saloon. Every body was on deck except the servants, and without difficulty a nook was found where the two were alone.

"Well," he said, breaking the silence with a voice full of emotion, "it is done, and we are parted as far as the earth is wide."

"No," she answered, clasping his hands in hers. "With a broken faith between us we should have been separated; now we are truly together, no matter how many oceans part us. It is hard; it is hard; but I know it must be right."

He bent forward to kiss her.

"No," she said, drawing back. "Your kisses belong to your wife, now. I have no right even to your thought. But I cannot help telling you, now we are parting, how much it is to me to love you. It is hard to leave you, Grant, to give you up; but now I understand that it is better to love, even if we are not together, even though we may not belong to each other. And I cannot but find comfort in thinking that you will not forget me."

"But if hereafter," he began eagerly, but before the words were uttered he realized what they implied, and a hot flush of shame tinged his cheek. "No," he said, "I cannot think of the future."

She put up her hand with a gesture of appeal. The bell of the steamer sounded out sharply upon the air.

"No," she said. "We must say good-by with no reservations, no hopes, even with no prayers. It is simply and absolutely good-by. And oh!" she added, her voice breaking a little, "I do so hope for your happiness, though I must not share it."

He wrung her hand and left her. Once he halted, as if to return, but her gesture gave him so absolute a farewell that he went on. His wife awaited him where he had left her. She slipped her arm through his.

"I am so glad you have come back," she said in her soft Italian, lifting to his a face full of trust and love; "I was so lonely and afraid without you."

He was touched with a tender pity as he looked into her eyes. When he withdrew his glance the steamer was moving, and he saw Helen leaning over the rail. She waved her hand, and as the ship glided away, down the harbor, these two, so separated, yet so united, clung together by their glances until distance shut them from each other's sight.

FINIS.