Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/17

Rh He did not reply.

Again she repeated the question.

"No," he replied at last, "neither drank a drop. I wish I could tell you of the tortures we suffered during the few hours we lay baking in that terrible sun. We could not sweat. Our bodies were boiled dry."

"And yet," she murmured, "within reach of your hand was life. I cannot understand."

"No," he said, "only those who have lived much in the jungle can understand." … He paused for a moment, then he continued softly, "And now Coningsby is dying. The man who has given the best years of his life to danger lies dying in quiet old New York. He often told me that he hoped to die in the jungle. Once when he saw an old truck-horse stricken in the street, Coningsby declared that he envied the old fellow, for he had died in harness. But none of Coningsby's hopes ever materialized. He always fought and worked like a man, but he never received a man's reward."

By the tone in which Jerold Wharton spoke, Olga Fullerton knew that he implied more than he had said.

"What do you mean?" she asked quickly.

"Simply, that Coningsby loves you," he declared quietly, with a terrible simplicity. "He is calling you to come."

She started back at his words as though she had been struck.

"But I do not love him!" she gasped weakly, and her words seemed to choke her.

"No," said Jerold Wharton. "Men like Coningsby,