Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/27

Rh "You are out early," said he finally, with a cordial smile.

"Yes," she murmured simply, "I could not sleep."

"Nor I," said he. "I have been up for several hours, walking restlessly back and forth from place to place. Like 'The ,’ my soul can find no rest."

"And I too have been most miserable," she declared with quivering voice. "Have you heard? Arthur is going to live."

"Yes," he replied in a voice so low that it was almost drowned by the breeze in the treetops, "you have saved his life."

At his words, so earnestly, yet so tenderly spoken, the tears rose in her eyes at last, and her slender form shook with uncontrollable sobs. Jerold Wharton could not speak. A woman's tears will sap the strength from even the strongest of men. Silently he took her into his arms, and drew her head to his breast. He could not trust himself to speak. And that moment was the saddest of his life. Although she stood in an attitude of surrender, he knew that she did not realize it. He was just a friend in trouble. So he fought back the impulse to crush her in his arms, to hold her to him and never let her go.

"She is not for me," he kept repeating fiercely to himself, "she is not for me."

When at last the sobs had grown fainter, and he could control his voice, Jerold said wistfully:

"Little woman, as soon as Coningsby is strong enough, you must tell him the truth; but not until