Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/247

 seemed to vanish before his straining eyes, and there was cool green sward and she was walking toward him. How plainly he saw her!—the sun glinting upon the golden hair, the glorious head so fearlessly thrown back, the joy of living in the peerless face, the pure white throat, the neat trim figure in the dark-blue print dress with its collar and cuffs of spotless white. She seemed to smile at him with her eyes, her lips. Involuntarily, he stretched out his arms.

"Janet! Janet!" he cried.

His arms dropped—he bowed his head.

His lips moved again: "Oh, the might have been!"—it was the yearning of his soul wrung from him in words.

After a moment he raised his head. This love had come to him and it was a wondrous thing, a holy thing—and it was deathless, basic. His now, it must dominate him, sway him, be the motive power, the impelling force of his every act, his every thought; to live on through the years without her would be to live through bitter years, each succeeding one harder to bear than the one before it—and his she could never be. Perhaps this was the better way—God's way. But if she only knew! She would think of him sometimes—he knew that. He would have liked to have her think of him as an honest man, an innocent man, to whom her sympathy and kindness had been a boon immeasurable—that her thoughts, from the knowledge of happiness brought to another, might bring her a measure of gladness too. She had believed him innocent, she had said—but if she only knew! If he might only have had the right to have told her that with his own lips!