Page:A fool in spots (IA foolinspots00riveiala).pdf/189

 "Oh, dear friend," she murmured, brokenly, as she sank into a chair, "how much better it would have been if I had never known loving or wedding."

Marrion looked through the windows into the bleared, vague, misty world, the familiar landscape was unrecognizable in the clinging fog. He understood, as she did, what had taken Robert from his work. He did not look at her, as he returned:

"I hope he'll quit this, sometime."

"Sometime," she repeated, "pain and struggle will give place to death, and then the soft shroud of forgetting will help me bear this grief."

"But I am looking forward to the change to bless this life," he tried to impress upon her. "He will get through this great work which he considers the effort of a life, and pretty soon he will leave off the old way, and then his past will be atoned for by a future of tenderness and devotion to you."

"But, dearest friend," she broke in, greatly agitated, "help me to live in the present, I am weary of waiting. I hunger for repose. Memories crush me while longing has worn my youth away. I know my one longing is hopeless—hopeless as though I should stretch these hungry arms to clasp the sun above us. I have given up hope at last!" Meeting his troubled look her face showed traces