Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/201

 fact, the biggest love, the biggest career in the world for me is just you!"

Bessie accompanied the words with an ecstatic little shrug of the shoulders and a self-abandoning toss of the head.

Reverently John pressed his lips upon hers and held her close for a very, very long time; while a thrill of indescribable bliss surged over and engulfed him. His embrace was gentle, even reverent; but it seemed he could not let her out of his arms. Here at last was one treasure he could never surrender; one renunciation he could never make.

"And to think," sighed Bessie, after a long and blissful silence, finding such rapture in nestling in those strong arms that she was still unwilling to lift her head from where she could feel the beating of his happy heart, "to think how long we have loved each other without expressing it; how loyal we have been to each other's love even before we had grown to recognize it for what it truly was."

Bessie looked up suddenly. It seemed to her that John's heart had done a funny thing; that it staggered and missed a beat.

But John ignored her look. His face was set and stubborn. He changed his position slightly and gathered her yet more determinedly in his arms, so that Bessie felt again how strong he was, and how much it means to woman's life to add a strength like that.

"Do you know, John," she prattled presently, out of the deepening bliss which this enormous sense of security inspired, "do you know that I used to fear for you? For me rather! To fear," she exclaimed with a happily apologetic little laugh, "that you might fall in love with Marien Dounay!"

But the laugh ended in a choke of surprise, when