Page:The Song of the Sirens.djvu/250

 drenched handkerchief. At intervals she gave way to sobbing, leaning against her mother, who half held her, half supported her.

The three had spoken seldom and then in whispers.

"You ought to have let us try, Bassus," the girl moaned. "You ought to have let us try," she reiterated.

"You did right, Corinna," he told her. "It was braver of you. And remember, it was wisest. Anything you might have done would only have sealed my doom. If I have any chance it is only because we have kept silent and made no move."

"But it is so dreadful!" she said, "to get you back after all that nightmare of grief and uncertainty and horror, to watch you recover and then to have to keep silent and remain inactive and see you go to death unhelped! To regain you only to lose you again! Oh, it is too dreadful!"

His face was the face of a man who beheld death close, indeed. But collapsed as he was he made a brave effort.

"Try to think of the brighter side of things," he urged.

"There isn't any brighter side to any of it," she declared.

"Yes there is," he insisted, "at the worst of it he can only order me to death, and I ought