Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/308

 were going to kill yourself," she said. "Isn't that true, Ian?"

"Yes," he answered. "It was the only thing to do."

"If you kill yourself, then you kill me also. For if you take your life I shall take mine. I have borne a good deal, but I couldn't bear that. I wouldn't even try to bear it."

"You don't know what you are saying, Terry!"

"Ah, yes, I know!"

"But you don't, I tell you, because you believe you are speaking to an innocent man. You are not. I am guilty of Millicent's death. In the sight of God I am her murderer."

"Ian!"

"You see! You did not know. Now you do know—you'll give me my freedom!"

"Not to die."

"To die, because by dying I can atone."

Terry shook her head. She hoped that he had merely worked himself up to a belief in his own guilt, through nights and days of torture beyond physical and mental endurance. But she felt that everything depended upon her, in this crisis. If God kept her brave and strong—above all, very calm—she might save him. But through God alone, she told herself with inward trembling, could she know how to do and say only the right things, now.

"Help me, God!" she prayed. "Thou hast