Page:Wadsworth Camp--the gray mask.djvu/21

Rh He saw grave trouble and an unanswerable doubt extinguish the excitement in her eyes. A premonition reached him. He fought against it desperately. His voice swayed a little.

"Don't look at me like that, Nora. You're going to marry me."

She shook her head. All at once there were tears in her eyes. Her hand lightly brushed her black skirt.

"Jim, you've often asked me why I wear these dark clothes. Now you make me tell you. I can trust you? Because no one knows unless my father guesses."

He nodded. She spoke with an effort.

"For the man I was going to marry, Jim. You see he—he died."

Garth arose and turned to the window. He leaned there, staring at the busy street, listening to its jarring discords. Among the children at play one boy, unkempt and filthy, stood braced against a railing, crying at the top of his lungs. In his abandonment to disappointment Garth accepted the picture as typical of his life—a crying out for the unattainable, a surrender to despair. The night's work lost its terror. Its issue became a matter of callous indifference.

Then her hand was on his arm, drawing him around so that he saw her face, which had lost its colour, and the growing doubt in her eyes.

"Try to understand, Jim. I think I scarcely do myself. I only know it hurts to see you unhappy.