Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/201

 and the yellow and red reflections of far-away masthead and side lanterns.

"The three of us are separated forever, I know—papa and mamma and I," Marjorie suddenly ended the long silence in which she had walked beside Gregg almost as in a dream. "My family, we've come to the end of that. There's no use for any one to figure how we can keep together; the best any one can do is help us to go apart and each of us keep something—something of what we used to think of each other and feel back there in that house on—on birthdays, Christmases—most every day, Gregg! It seemed so perfect and so happy! It was happy, Gregg! Father was happy! He couldn't have made me so happy without being happy himself! And he didn't lack anything! He couldn't have wanted anything else!"

Gregg clutched her arm and held it tight as he felt her convulse in her effort for self-control. He did not try to answer her; reply would be surplusage when her father so certainly had wanted and gone out to gain something else. She had stopped and he stood with her in the dark of the path and patted her gently as she felt in her cape pocket for a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Gregg," she apologized.

"Don't say a word of that to me!" he forbade her with queer gruffness in his voice. "You've been wonderful, Marjorie. No one like you ever in the world. Oh, my God, I wish I could do something."

"No one can, Gregg. What a humpty-dumpty thing honor is; and love and—what holds a family together! It's up there on the wall and you think it solid and safe as the wall; then something tips it; and