Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/226



She raised her head; an unquenchable triumph smiled at him.

“I did know!” she cried exultantly. Suddenly her whole expression changed, her head sank again.

“Oh, Lady, my child, my baby!” she moaned, all mother now, and brokenhearted.

“You must never tell her, never!” she panted. “You will forget; you—I will go away—”

“It is you who are mad, Alice,” he said sternly. “Listen to me. For all these weeks it has been your voice I have remembered, your face I have seen in imagination in my house. It is you I have missed from us three—never Lady. It is you I have tried to please and hoped to satisfy—not Lady. Ever since you told me you would not spend the winter with us I have been discontented. Why, Alice, I have never kissed her in my life—as I have kissed you.”

She grew red to the tips of her little