Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/261

 too strikingly familiar in the stride and action of the short, broad-built form—it was Warden Rand. "It is true," he said again; "it is for the last time. I did not think when I sailed on the schooner from Gloucester for the Grand Banks that my voyage would end here—with you. I thought then that I had seen you for the last time—it, a thing like that, could never happen again."

"Then you will speak"—she was very close to him, her breath was on his cheek, her lips were trembling, her eyes, tear-dimmed, were raised to his. Speak! Yes! Why not—and grasp at his chance for happiness! To stand a free man, his future before him, to work for her, to win her in the days to come! He had only to speak and let the coward soul he was shielding—no, it was not that—strange that for the moment he should have forgotten! It came to him now bringing peace, strengthening him, calming him—the gentle, patient face of Mrs. Merton, the silvery hair so smoothly parted beneath the old-lace cap, and the eyes of trust looked into his again now as they had looked through all his boyhood—and the dear lips smiled at him. He turned his head from Janet—and shook it silently.

Her voice broke. "It—it must always be—like this?"

It was a long time before he spoke.

"Always," he said—it was but a single word, low spoken, but it was his doom, his sentence self-pronounced.

She drew back from him, a smile struggling bravely for supremacy on the quivering lips.