Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/261

Rh course you know what that is. It has been so great that it has many times brought me to the verge of abandoning my purpose. It is the leaving Ally, my dear, sweet, darling sister. But she has a father and a mother, and may I not say, dear Will, a brother? I have settled on her unreservedly half of my fortune, and dear old Guardy is to take care of it for her as he always had for me." Mechanically I folded the letter. Mechanically, but with breathless rapidity, I moved about my room, making all my arrangements for going to Jim by the next train, which would start in a few minutes. I had but one distinct consciousness in my brain; it whirled back and forth, and back and forth, in the one question: If Jim could leave Ally like this, had he loved her as I thought? I must know.

A day and a night and a day I rode with that question, in a million shapes, mocking, comforting, racking my soul. When I stood face to face with Jim, in answer to his alarmed and eager "Why, Will, Will, what has brought you? Are you in trouble?" all I could do was to gasp out slowly, syllable by syllable, the same question,—

"Jim, if you love Ally, how can you leave her so?"

My face more than the words told him the whole story.

"Oh, my Will, my Will!" he said, putting his hands on my shoulders, and standing so closely