Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/218

 Dunbar tried to get himself in hand.

"I—we," he said, and faltered.

"And you thought—you think—"

"Let me see it, cried Dunbar. "Let me see it. I've got to see it—she had one, too."

"Let me think," said Beauling. He tried to fight off the growing conviction. "It can't be you," he began desperately, "or I would have recognized you—it mustn't be you; and yet—I—it's so faded—I—"

"You don't know how I've changed, either," said Dunbar. "Quick, let's see it, and have it over."

"Have it over!" said Beauling, slowly. "Do you know what that would mean to me—Phylis?"

Dunbar choked over something he was trying to say.

"If it should be you," said Beauling, huskily, "it would be too horrible. I will destroy this and go away."

"We have got to know," said Dunbar. "Give it to me."

The two men looked into each other's white and tired faces.