Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/277

 is what I thought marriage was, the inner meaning of it—and not a barren desolate place, full of darkness and cynicism and the terror of death. Do you understand, a little, why I felt so alone, so helplessly alone early in the year? and why I wanted to talk with you this summer, and why I have just had to tell you these things to-night?"

She put out her hand toward mine; mine closed over it.

"Cornelia," I said, "I loved you twenty years ago, and—in some ways I haven't changed much since. Have you?"

"Please—please don't!" she said, gently withdrawing her hand.

"And when the silence fell around us here, a little while ago," I continued, "and the meadowlark sang in it, and then it was still again, didn't you feel, didn't you know—Cornelia, tell me what the silence said to you, when it grew too intense, and you broke it."

She lifted her head and seemed for a moment to be following the flight of a sea gull winging into the darkening West. Then she turned her cool gray eyes upon mine, steadily, steadily, till their flame burnt under my ribs and close about my heart.