Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/393

Rh "Oh, Tom, Tom!" she cried, " was n't it like an inspiration, the impulse which made me tell you that sentence? Supposing I had not told you, you would never have believed in me again—never!"

"No," said Tom.

"Don't you see, dear love," continued Susan, "just how I said that? simply to save you pain?—not in the least because there were any secrets in the past I was afraid of Bell's letting out, but because by your speech to me about the professor, I knew that you had had some feeling about him, and I thought, if Bell said any more of her light, jesting, thoughtless things in regard to him, they would only strengthen your feeling and give you annoyance. Do you see? Oh, do say that you see just how it was!"

"Yes, I do see," said Tom, kissing her. "I do see, and I thank God that you told me yourself of the sentence. That took the load off my heart."

Susan shuddered.

"Oh, suppose I had forgotten it!" she said. "I might have, though I don't believe I ever could, for the sentence hurt me when I wrote it."

Susan was weak from nervous exhaustion; the twenty-four hour's strain had been a severe one. She laid her head on her husband's shoulder and closed her eyes. Without a word, without a sound, without a motion, she knew that they were one again.

After a time she said softly:—