She drew back from him, looking about the room with unseeing eyes, her fingers plucking and tearing at the lace of her dress; her voice was faint and small, like the voice of a little child.

"I--I am afraid to be alone. Oh, I must never be alone again so long as I shall live. I think I should die."

"And you never shall be; never again. Ah, this is my birthday, too, sweetheart. I am born again to-night."

Laura clung to his arm; it was as though she were in the dark, surrounded by the vague terrors of her girlhood. "And you will always love me, love me, love me?" she whispered. "Sheldon, Sheldon, love me always, always, with all your heart and soul and strength."

Tears stood in Corth.e.l.l's eyes as he answered:

"G.o.d forgive whoever--whatever has brought you to this pa.s.s," he said.

And, as if it were a realisation of his thought, there suddenly came to the ears of both the roll of wheels upon the asphalt under the carriage porch and the trampling of iron-shod hoofs.

"Is that your husband?" Corth.e.l.l's quick eye took in Laura's disarranged coiffure, one black lock low upon her neck, the roses at her shoulder crushed and broken, and the bright spot on either cheek.

"Is that your husband?"

"My husband--I don't know." She looked up at him with unseeing eyes.

"Where is my husband? I have no husband. You are letting me remember,"

she cried, in terror. "You are letting me remember. Ah, no, no, you don't love me! I hate you!"

Quickly he bent and kissed her.

"I will come for you to-morrow evening," he said. "You will be ready then to go with me?"

"Ready then? Yes, yes, to go with you anywhere."

He stood still a moment, listening. Somewhere a door closed. He heard the hoofs upon the asphalt again.

"Good-by," he whispered. "G.o.d bless you! Good-by till to-morrow night."

And with the words he was gone. The front door of the house closed quietly.

Had he come back again? Laura turned in her place on the long divan at the sound of a heavy tread by the door of the library.

Then an uncertain hand drew the heavy curtain aside. Jadwin, her husband, stood before her, his eyes sunken deep in his head, his face dead white, his hand shaking. He stood for a long instant in the middle of the room, looking at her. Then at last his lips moved:

"Old girl.... Honey."

Laura rose, and all but groped her way towards him, her heart beating, the tears streaming down her face.

"My husband, my husband!"

Together they made their way to the divan, and sank down upon it side by side, holding to each other, trembling and fearful, like children in the night.

"Honey," whispered Jadwin, after a while. "Honey, it's dark, it's dark.

Something happened.... I don't remember," he put his hand uncertainly to his head, "I can't remember very well; but it's dark--a little."

"It's dark," she repeated, in a low whisper. "It's dark, dark.

Something happened. Yes. I must not remember."

They spoke no further. A long time pa.s.sed. Pressed close together, Curtis Jadwin and his wife sat there in the vast, gorgeous room, silent and trembling, ridden with unnamed fears, groping in the darkness.

And while they remained thus, holding close by one another, a prolonged and wailing cry rose suddenly from the street, and pa.s.sed on through the city under the stars and the wide canopy of the darkness.

"Extra, oh-h-h, extra! All about the Smash of the Great Wheat Corner!

All about the Failure of Curtis Jadwin!"

CONCLUSION

The evening had closed in wet and misty. All day long a chill wind had blown across the city from off the lake, and by eight o'clock, when Laura and Jadwin came down to the dismantled library, a heavy rain was falling.

Laura gave Jadwin her arm as they made their way across the room--their footsteps echoing strangely from the uncarpeted boards.

"There, dear," she said. "Give me the valise. Now sit down on the packing box there. Are you tired? You had better put your hat on. It is full of draughts here, now that all the furniture and curtains are out."

"No, no. I'm all right, old girl. Is the hack there yet?"

"Not yet. You're sure you're not tired?" she insisted. "You had a pretty bad siege of it, you know, and this is only the first week you've been up. You remember how the doctor--"

"I've had too good a nurse," he answered, stroking her hand, "not to be fine as a fiddle by now. You must be tired yourself, Laura. Why, for whole days there--and nights, too, they tell me--you never left the room."

She shook her head, as though dismissing the subject.

"I wonder," she said, sitting down upon a smaller packing-box and clasping a knee in her hands, "I wonder what the West will be like. Do you know I think I am going to like it, Curtis?"

"It will be starting in all over again, old girl," he said, with a warning shake of his head. "Pretty hard at first, I'm afraid."

She laughed an almost contemptuous note.

"Hard! Now?" She took his hand and laid it to her cheek.

"By all the rules you ought to hate me," he began. "What have I done for you but hurt you and, at last, bring you to--"

But she shut her gloved hand over his mouth.

"Stop!" she cried. "Hush, dear. You have brought me the greatest happiness of my life."

Then under her breath, her eyes wide and thoughtful, she murmured:

"A capitulation and not a triumph, and I have won a victory by surrendering."