Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/262

252 breast to breast with me that his breath was warm on my cheek. "I never once thought of Ally as a wife, never! God be praised that you love her. Oh, my grand old boy, how did you ever torture yourself so for nothing?" he burst out, impatiently, throwing one arm around my neck in our old boyish fashion.

I had not slept, I had scarcely eaten, for seventy hours. I staggered and reeled, and Jim caught me in his arms. I felt that I looked up in his face helplessly, as a woman might. For one brief moment in our lives, he was the stronger man. He gave me wine, and tried to persuade me to rest, To all his persuasions I had but one answer,—

"I must go to Ally. There is no rest for me till I know."

It was a marvelous thing how strong a hope had sprung into instantaneous life in my heart. I had no shadow of reason to believe that Ally loved me. Yet I believed it.

"I will come back to you, Jim; I will come back at once," I said, "but you must let me go. It is of no use to try to stop me."

He proposed to go with me. I was too overwrought to consider the cruelty of my words, and I exclaimed:— "Not for worlds!"

It seemed to me at that moment that to have seen Ally meet us, and throw her arms around her "brother Jim," before I knew that he was to her a