Instead of the Thorn

CHAPTER XXIV
WHITCOMB'S CONFESSION

Blanche Aurora never removed her eyes from her beneficiary.

"The best jelly ever," he remarked between two mouthfuls.

"You don't talk a bit like a king," she declared judicially.

"Have you known many?"

"Only in stories."

"Somebody evidently has told you a fairy story about me," – the speaker continued to eat industriously. "Who tried to induce you to believe that I was anything but an American rack of bones?"

"I knew you was a great man, and they said King."

"A great man, eh? How's that?"

"And I believed nobody but a king could make Miss Linda cry."

The gray eyes lifted for a look at the visitor before the eating recommenced.

"Not guilty," said King.

"She cried somethin' terrible 'cause you was sick."

The memory seemed to make the small piquant nose tingle, for Blanche Aurora wiggled it and snapped the china-blue eyes.

"She cries a good deal, I suppose."

"She never cries," declared the small maid indignantly. "Why should anybody that can have anythin' in the world and do anythin' in the world cry? I didn't know Miss Linda could cry; but her beau came over – "

The gray eyes lifted again, for a moment, but the convalescent's appetite appeared to be still ravenous.

" – And she was walkin' with him, and she come into the house and told Miss Barry you was sick, and – " Again Blanche Aurora's nose and lips wiggled in grievous reminiscence.

"Do you mean Mr. Frederick Whitcomb?"

"That's him. He told me he was her beau, but I guess he ain't no longer. I don't believe" – a shrewd look coming into the blue gazing eyes – "I don't believe she'd cry like that about him, 'cause she never does cry." The addition was made with a return of indignation. "She's the beautifulest, kindest lady in the whole world."

"H'm," mumbled King, over an extra large spoonful.

"She give me this dress" – the speaker grasped a fold of the azure gingham – "and a pink one, too, and ribbons. She used to wear the dresses herself, 'fore her pa died. When she come here first I looked like a scarecrow."

"My compliments, Blanche Aurora." King bowed toward his companion whose small white teeth gleamed in a face thrilled into vivacity. "You do Miss Linda credit."

"So I wondered what you was like, O King – I mean Mr. King. I guess you're just plain Mister, ain't you?"

"There never was a plainer."

"And so, when I seen this new likeness on Miss Linda's table, standin' by her pa's, I wondered if perhaps 'twas you, and it is!" finished Blanche Aurora with all the triumph of a Sherlock Holmes. "I put a wild rose front of her pa every day, and says I to her this mornin', 'Shall I git a rose for the new picture, too?' – but she looked awful sad and she shook her head and says, 'I'm afraid not, Blanche Aurora. We need pansies for that'; and we ain't got a pansy on the place. I'm awful sorry."

"Do you know, I don't believe I can quite finish this delicious jelly? I feel now as if my sweater wouldn't give any more."

"Well, you've et quite a lot," observed the visitor, looking into the bowl.

"I certainly have; and will you thank Miss Barry for me, and tell her that I feel in these noticeable bones that I'm going to be up and around before very long?"

"I'll tell her; and, oh, yes! Be you able to see folks?"

King's eyes twinkled. "Well, I seem to have seen you without any danger."

"Yes, but they didn't expect I was goin' to see you." There was a triumphant gleam in the speaker's eyes. "They told me to leave the jell."

"You think for yourself, don't you, Blanche Aurora?" laughed King, settling down comfortably into his pillow.

"I was bound I was goin' to see who it was could make Miss Linda sob, and sob, and besides, I wanted to see if the likeness was you that wasn't ever on her table before."

Long after the visitor's departure King lay, a deep line between his brows, his perplexed thoughts accompanied by the constant sound as of rain in the rustling Balm-of-Gilead leaves above him. Linda in wild tears; Linda placing a photograph of himself beside that of her father and all following Fred Whitcomb's visit; there was something here to be inquired into.

It was nearly noon when the laborers on the tennis court returned. King could hear their laughter as they approached the house; and shortly Whitcomb appeared beside the hammock, exasperatingly robust and gay, and wiping his moist brow.

"How goes it?" he asked, grasping the rope and swinging the couch.

"Stop that, or I'll murder you," growled King.

"Sure thing. I forgot," said Whitcomb as he tightened his hold and brought the chrysalis to a standstill. "Madge Lindsay's a scream," he continued. "She's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. She knows every word of the Winter Garden and Follies songs for the last two years. I'll get her started so you can hear her one of these times."

"Good Lord, deliver us!" uttered King devoutly.

"Got a grouch, old man?" asked Whitcomb with a solicitous change of tone. "Did Blanche A-roarer, the human siren, blow her whistle too near you? We met her and she said she was bringing you jell."

"She did, and it's safely stowed away under my sweater. What are you going to do next?"

"Why, we thought we'd go into the water. We both took a Turkish bath out there on that Transgressor's Boulevard that we're trying to turn into a tennis court. It's high tide, and Madge says there's a beach down here where we can get a ducking when the water's high. That's the trouble with this place. It's so jagged and deep, only a submarine could go bathing here at low tide. Why?" added Whitcomb. "Did you want me for anything?"

"No. What should I want you for? Get out."

"All right. You'll be coming with us in a little while. So long. We're watching the time and we'll be on hand for dinner. Mackerel, the fair Luella told me. I can hardly wait."

King gazed after his friend as the latter ran across the grass and disappeared within their tent. He closed his eyes, and opening them in a few minutes at a sound, found beside him a figure in a long black cloak, with a dark face beneath a red bathing-cap. Miss Lindsay was smiling down at him.

"We're going for a dip, Mr. King. I wish you could come."

"Pardon my not rising," said the invalid.

"It's such fun to have somebody to play with. I'm so glad you brought Fred here. I was getting so bored."

"That's a consoling way of putting it," remarked King. "It's a proud moment when I am spoken of as taking anybody anywhere."

"Oh, you'll be out of that hammock in a week. Do you like the banjo, Mr. King?"

"I hate it," he replied distinctly; then seeing the dark face fall, "but not more than I do everything."

"So discouraging," drawled Madge. "I was going to promise to give you some perfectly jolly darky tunes to-night."

"Good Lord, deliver us!" again rose to King's lips, but he swallowed the phrase. "Don't mind about me," he said. "Just give me a few board nails to bite, and let it go at that. I'm not worse than other convalescents, I dare say."

"Lemon jelly wasn't the thing to feed him," said Madge to Whitcomb, as a few minutes later they were scrambling down the bank toward a short stretch of pebbly beach. "He should be fed saccharine and nothing else. You never do know what to do with such people. You don't like not to be civil. You have a wonderful disposition, Fred. Yes, you have. I've always noticed it."

"I fancy I am something of an optimist," admitted Whitcomb, "but I need to be, as badly as anybody that ever lived. Now I'm trying to think that that sunny water will feel the way it looks."

"Come on, then," cried Madge, flinging aside her cloak, and seizing his hand she drew him, protesting and howling, into the icy flood. The wind was offshore, and Madge, thoroughly acclimated, had been anticipating mischievously the effect upon the tenderfoot.

He was game, however, and Lake Michigan had made him practically amphibious, so they had an exhilarating swim before coming out on the white pebbles for a sun bath.

"I'm afraid it will be a long time before King can stand that," remarked Whitcomb.

"What did you mean," asked Madge, "by saying a few minutes ago that you need a happy disposition more than other people? Is it because Mr. King is so difficult?"

"No," replied Whitcomb, gathering up a few pebbles and beginning to play jackstones. He avoided his companion's very good-looking but enterprising eyes.

"Well, aren't you going to tell me?"

"I don't know why I shouldn't. You're my cousin. I adore a girl who doesn't care a hang for me."

"The Thermos bottle," thought Madge acutely. "But you won't tell me who?" she hazarded aloud.

"Why should I?"

"You don't have to; but just remember this, Freddy Whitcomb. Look at this great ocean. It's like the great world. That saying, 'there's just as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it,' is true; and" – Madge captured Whitcomb's reluctant gaze with as bright eyes as ever sparkled under a red cap – "some people are only fish with gold scales," she drawled.

"She isn't," blurted out the young man defensively.

"Of course not," laughed Madge. "Want to go in once more?"

Whitcomb sprang to his feet. "Once more, and then what ho! for the mackerel!"

As he helped Madge up the bank a little later he said: "I must stay with King this afternoon."

"And call at the Barrys'," thought his companion.

"I'm afraid he got sort of down this morning, all alone."

"Well, we'll have another go at the court to-morrow," replied Madge good-naturedly. "Freddy needn't have worried," she thought. She was far too clever to satiate a man with her society.

King came to the dinner table and did full justice to the meal. "I'm quite sure," he said to Mrs. Lindsay, "that those hammocks were dedicated to the naps of yourself and your daughter, and I want to assure you that I've had my share of them for to-day."

The ladies protested kindly.

"I've had my eye on a big rock there is over there nearer the water," said King. "I'm going to try my rickety legs that far."

A chorus of approval of the plan arose, and after a short time of sitting about the discouraged piazza, he and Whitcomb rambled slowly off.

To King's disgust, his friend as they left had picked up a steamer rug.

"Oh, cut it out," begged the convalescent.

"Shut up!" returned the other cheerfully.

Arrived at their goal, he threw down the rug and King was glad to sit on it under the lee of the big rock.

"What did you do yesterday, Freddy?" asked King, going directly to the subject uppermost in his mind.

"I called on Linda and Mrs. Porter. Mrs. Porter told you, didn't she?"

"Yes. She came over, exuding gratitude to you at every pore, and adorably sympathetic and charming to me."

"Well, that's all right, isn't it?" returned Whitcomb, a little uncomfortable under his friend's gaze, which seemed more portentous than was necessary. "Women always overdo the gratitude business. Just like her to praise me for engineering an extra long vacation for myself."

"Freddy, you haven't told me everything," said King sternly. "Now, spit it right out in Papa's hand."

"What are you talking about?" asked the other uneasily.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. When Linda left Chicago I was the blackest sheep on her black list. What did you tell her to change her attitude? It wasn't that I had been ill, for she would have buried me cheerfully. Now, out with it!"

"Is this the third degree?" Whitcomb was gathering the daisies within reach.

"Yes. It wasn't any opinion you had of me contrary to hers. She thinks for herself; so give me the real stuff."

"Why do you believe she has changed?" Whitcomb returned the other's gaze now doggedly.

"Because, after you left, she wept; – according to impartial testimony, loud and long. Also she dug up my photograph and placed it on a table beside her father's. This information was fed to me with the jelly."

"Blanche Aurora!" exclaimed Whitcomb, scowling.

"Exactly. Now, then!"

"Well," said Whitcomb, "it seems the time to tell you. While you were in the hospital your jabbering aroused my suspicions. I wasn't Henry Radcliffe and I hadn't been forbidden; so I went through some of your papers. When I had found the Antlers correspondence I didn't need to go any farther."

King's thoughtful frown deepened and his face grew slowly and darkly red.

Whitcomb maintained his steady regard. "At that time I didn't know whether you were going to live or not, but I did know that justice was going to be done you."

Recollection of Whitcomb's devotion swept over the other man like a tide, submerging the first sensation of outraged privacy: of having been outwitted.

"You meant well," he said in a low tone.

"Yes, and I did well," said Whitcomb slowly. "I didn't tell Radcliffe till the night before we left Chicago. Harriet was in Wisconsin. I don't know her so well as Linda; but Linda is as fair-minded as another fellow. There was only one thing to do in her case."

There was a short silence, then Whitcomb continued: —

"I'll tell you frankly that if I had had any idea of the depth of her feeling in the matter, I should have hesitated. This laying down your life for a friend isn't in my line. It's beyond me. You know how I've banked on seeing her. Well, she can't see me. I used to be awfully afraid of you and it passed. Now I'm afraid of you again."

King saw his friend's increasing difficulty of speech, and he put a hand on the big brown arm.

"No cause, Freddy. Absolutely no cause," he said.

There was silence for a time, then King sank back from the erect posture he had maintained.

"It can't be helped," he said, speaking low. "It can't be helped."

"No," said Whitcomb roughly, "and it ought not to be helped. There was no sense in your quixotism."

"Would you, do you believe," asked King slowly, – "would you do as much for Linda?"

The other looked up at him sharply.

"Did you do it for Linda?"

"Yes; every act of my life I believed was for Linda," returned King quietly.

"Then" – began Whitcomb excitedly.

"Yes; then," interrupted King, still quietly. "Then; not now. It's over. It's finished."

Whitcomb frowned off toward the illimitable sea; and Madge's attempt at consolation came back to him. He repudiated it. Linda Barry was peerless.

CHAPTER XXV
THE MAN AND THE MAID

King's improvement was slow, but steady, and the stretch of good weather upon which he happened on arriving at the Cape enabled him to live out-of-doors and was a great factor in his favor.

Miss Barry called on him very early in his stay, bringing with her an appetizing little custard. It was a form of food which King had always detested, but feigning polite enthusiasm he tasted it to please her, and promptly discovered that the gastronomic question was no longer, "What is it?" but merely, "Where is it?" He finished the custard.

Mrs. Porter was a daily visitor, and one afternoon, when they had walked over to the big rock and were resting there, she told him of her own Arcadian retreat beside the spring.

"In such a little while you will be able to walk as far as that," she said. "You will enjoy seeing Miss Barry's cottage, too. Did you know it was her brother's gift?"

King nodded. "She was telling me about it the other day."

The sun had already begun to paint hues of health on his face and his voice was gaining resonance. "I try to visualize Mr. Barry here in his rôle of 'barefoot boy with cheek of tan,' but it's a hard proposition."

"So it is for Linda. She follows up old Jerry or any one else she can find who went to school with her father, and gleans every possible anecdote of his boyhood."

King leaned his head back on the rock and gazed up into space. "Isn't it wonderful here?" he said. "I've thought many times since I arrived of the old woman who, when she first beheld the ocean, exclaimed, 'Thank the Lord, that at last He's let me see enough of something!'"

"Yes, it's emancipation. Linda and I have often remarked that it would seem impossible to have narrow thoughts here. She doesn't wish to intrude, Bertram, but she would like to come to see you."

King met the sweet, questioning expression of his companion's eyes. "I see plainly," he answered with a smile, "that you and I must have it out about Linda. Your persistent references to her each time you come show that she is very much on your mind."

"She is very much on my mind," returned Mrs. Porter gravely. "I wish you would send a kindly message to her by me, and say that you would be glad to see her."

"But I wouldn't, Maud," returned King mildly. "What would you do in that case? Of course, you know the whole situation, and know that Whitcomb with his grand little revelation bouleversed all Linda's fixed ideas."

"Oh, she is so changed, Bertram," exclaimed Mrs. Porter. "She's not the Linda you knew."

"Perhaps; but it's safe to say that she's still – still tremendous. I'm more or less shaky yet; and I must confess that the prospect of an interview with Linda in a cyclone of repentance makes me – well, shrink. It croozles me, if you know what that means. Sort of takes me in the pit of the stomach."

"You're all wrong. She has been through the fire, and she has learned self-control." Mrs. Porter paused to choose her words. "She longs, Bertram – longs for your forgiveness.

"I've nothing to forgive her," he returned pleasantly. "She had plenty of company in the mistake she made."

Something in Mrs. Porter's loving look and wistful eyes caused the speaker to change his tone.

"I won't fence with you, Maud. I told you once I loved Linda. I did, with a depth which seemed to exhaust my power of loving. It's true that one doesn't feel a pin-prick when at the same moment he is struck a mortal blow. The fatal fact was not that Linda blamed me for the sorrow that had fallen upon her. It was that there was no desire on her part to give me a chance: to hear my side of the story: none of the extenuation which one ray of love would have naturally expressed. Instead, there was hatred in her eyes. That was the only thing that mattered."

King leaned back against the rock, breathing fast. "I tell you this, Maud. You're the only person in the world who will know it, and we won't speak of it again. I know Linda so well. I know how this revulsion of feeling would express itself with her. She would like to come over here and wait on me by inches. My wish would be her law; but that would matter no more than her mistake about the Antlers. The essential fact has been revealed, and – nothing else matters."

"Is your present feeling for her dislike, then?" asked Mrs. Porter.

"Certainly not."

"It would be no pain to you to meet her?"

"It would be a bore," returned King gently. "Isn't that enough? Of course, it will have to come some day; but I've been a good deal indulged lately, and I believe in putting off an evil day. I should like Linda to have worked off some of her repentant steam before we meet."

King, his self-possession regained, smiled again into his companion's face. "Whitcomb is devoted to her. Let her work it off on him," he added.

"She will never marry him," said Mrs. Porter.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," was the polite response.

Mrs. Porter leaned toward her companion with her broad, charming smile.

"Bertram King, that's a lie," she remarked slowly.

He winked and lifted his eyebrows.

"There's a lot for you to learn about love," she went on. "To love unselfishly is the best thing that can happen to anybody."

"There's no such thing as unselfish love," declared King.

"Oh, yes there is, and you proved that you experienced it. You put Linda's happiness above your own. You willingly endured injustice to mitigate her pain. Don't you know that your nature was enriched by that? Don't you know that your action, now that she understands it, reflects upon her, and uplifts her nature and her ideals? We can't crystallize, because we're the children of God; and God is Infinite Love, and Love is a divine principle which is ever active. You assume too much when you hold Linda to the narrow development of her school-girl days. You can remain behind your human defenses and refuse to forgive her if you choose – "

"I told you, and honestly, that I have nothing to forgive."

Mrs. Porter shook her head. "God doesn't treat us so when we turn to Him repentantly. He doesn't say there is nothing to forgive and leave us with the sharp thorn unremoved. That sweet sense that God is Love is borne in upon us after a genuine repentance, and gives the consciousness that we shall be upheld if we long to be, and guarded from a repetition of the offense."

"My dear Maud, you're way beyond my depth."

"No, Bertram, I am not. You reflected something of the divine in that tender protecting love you felt for Linda. I don't despair of you. In spite of all the things you have been saying to fortify your human self, I know, for actions speak louder than words, that a very lofty affection once found place in your heart, and that pure flame cannot die because it was a reflection of that which is immortal and eternal. Never mind Linda. God will take care of her, too. Your business is with your own thought, to keep it in a high place, trusting to be led to that happiness which God has prepared for them that love Him, without outlining what that happiness shall consist in."

King drew a long breath and smiled, looking long and affectionately at his companion.

"Isn't she the great little preacher!" he remarked.

"Oh, it's all so simple!" exclaimed Mrs. Porter softly, clasping her hands together. "Why can't everybody see it!"

When she went home to-day, she told Linda nothing of this interview. The girl had ceased to cross-question her friend on her return from these visits; for she never received any satisfaction, and the invitation she longed for never came.

Blanche Aurora was very much alive to the fact that her adored one was the only member of the family who had not called on the convalescent. She was not entirely satisfied to have it so. King's photograph had been framed, and Blanche Aurora in the growing scarcity of wild roses made little bouquets of clover and daisies and placed them between the two pictures, and she noticed that Linda allowed the sharing.

Whitcomb came to call sometimes, but between his attentions to King and the carrying out of Madge's various plans, his time was pretty well occupied.

Late one afternoon Blanche Aurora found Linda in the hammock and alone. She seized her opportunity.

"Say, Miss Linda," she began, "we've got a real good Bavarian cream for Mr. King's supper. 'Tain't convenient for me to take it over. I wonder if you could."

Linda sat up, and regarded the white-aproned short figure. The pink bow atop quivered with the depth of its owner's imaginings and deep-laid schemes. The keen eyes observed that Linda flushed and hesitated.

"Mrs. Porter is still in Portland?" she asked.

"Why, yes, and didn't you know Miss Barry went too? I've got to get their supper, you see; and the cream come out awful good."

Linda rose. "Yes, I'll go," she said quietly; but there was no quiet within.

All the way across the field, her heart hurried. She had never called at the Benslow house. To go for the first time to see King, without his request, and risk his betraying, perhaps, before the others, that she was unwelcome, was an ordeal which she dreaded, but the desire to see him rose above the confusion of her crowding thoughts, and though her hands trembled on the covered bowl she pushed on.

The lovely late afternoon light struck across the field. Bertram King, wandering down from the piazza, noted the golden sheen upon the grass and the majestic cloud-effects in the vast arch above. His near-sighted eyes beheld a white figure advancing in the golden light.

He hastened his steps in welcome.

"Good for you," he cried. "I was getting very tired of myself. There's been an exodus from here to Portland to-day. I know I'm a big boy now, since Whitcomb was willing to leave me. Even Miss Benslow is out and I'm holding the fort."

All the time that his words were calling through the still air, he was walking toward the visitor. Linda's face from doubt grew radiant. The relieved, happy color rose in her cheeks. Her lovely eyes beamed. In her white gown and with her shining, grateful joy, she was very beautiful as her light springing step brought her near and into King's field of vision. His breath caught in the shock and he stood stock-still.

"I'm glad to see you, too, Bertram," she cried. Her eyes were starry, her smile enchanting.

"Why, Linda! I beg your pardon. I thought you were Maud," he exclaimed.

The change in his tone, his blank surprise and ebbing eagerness, set Linda's heart to beating wildly. The stricture in her bosom drew back the radiant promise from her face.

King saw the transformation with a pang. "Forgive my shouting at you like that," he went on, struggling for his self-possession. It was as if Linda's soul had been revealed to him for an instant, joyous, hopeful, humble: the new Linda of whom Maud had spoken.

"You have something for me, I'll wager," he continued. He could see the white napkin trembling in the suddenly unsteady hands. "Let me take it," suiting the action to the word. "I've grown arrogantly used to bowls coming across this field filled with something delicious, designed to upholster these bones."

Linda had made good use of the time he gave her. Her throat was free again. She could speak. "You look better than I expected," she said quietly.

"And you, too, Linda. You do credit to the place." King was trying to regain some of the plans he had formulated for their first interview; but they had been designed to baffle effusiveness, and this girl in the white gown seemed to radiate calm.

"Yes," she returned. "I have Blanche Aurora's word for it that the Bavarian cream in that bowl is good. There has been an exodus to Portland from our house, too, so she asked me to bring it over."

"Awfully good of you," said King, hot with mingled sensations. "There never was any one so spoiled as I."

"I must run back now," said Linda. "I can see that you will soon have the freedom of the neighborhood, and we shall be looking for you at Aunt Belinda's."

"Oh, don't desert me," begged King. It was as if he had obtained the promise of a wonderful gift: the lavish outpouring of a rich nature. A veil had fallen, concealing it: a veil, pure, white, impenetrable. Linda's eyes and voice were friendly, self-possessed.

"Blanche Aurora says snacks are good for you when you're sick and delicate," he went on; "but never have I been reduced to eating a snack alone. It's tea-time, too. Couldn't you make me some tea?"

Linda's dimple appeared. "I'm afraid the duty of a host presses upon you. I'd better not. I've never called at the Benslows'. Besides, you say there's not a chaperone on the place."

"There are the hens," said King eagerly. "Won't they do? You never saw so many in your life. Come. We'll have tea on the piazza. Whitcomb has rigged up an old sail across one end so Boreas shan't strike my frail form too roughly."

He turned back toward the house, beseeching her with his eyes, and Linda followed in silence. "I'm getting to know this bowl," continued King, lifting it and investigating its blue stripes. "It's a magic one, never empty excepting when I get through with it. We'll have two spoons. I'm not stingy."

As they ascended the rickety piazza steps, King continued: "The tea-table is in there in the living-room. I'll get – " he staggered, and stopped. Whitcomb had been right when he said that his friend couldn't yet bear excitement.

Linda, looking up, saw him grow ghastly pale.

"Oh, confound it!" he gasped.

The blue-and-white bowl fell from his hands down among Luella's sweet-pea vines. He managed to take a step toward the steamer chair, collapsed into it, and fainted away ignominiously.

Linda threw herself on her knees beside him. "Bertram, Bertram!" she cried in grief and terror. It was for her father and for her that the strong man had come to this. She slipped her arm around him. In her inexperience she thought he might be dying.

"Oh, Bertram, speak to me!" she cried. There was a pitcher of water on the neighboring table. She dipped her handkerchief into it and dabbed his brow and his fair hair, and softly between dry sobs she called his name. They were alone in the remote, tumbledown house. Even the ocean's mighty grasp of its rocks sounded distant. There was no one to call upon save the invisible Reality, and Linda turned her full heart to the very present help.

In a minute, which seemed to her an hour, consciousness began to return to King. Her arm was around him; she had drawn his cheek against her bosom. As he slowly realized his position and heard her low voice, he seemed again to see Linda as she had come toward him in her white gown across the green gold of the field. Every paining haunting memory was submerged in a strange, ineffable bliss.

Without opening his eyes he spoke her name.

"Yes, Bertram, yes," she responded joyfully.

"I love you, Linda."

Her heart bounded, and he felt it; and she did not change her position.

"I shall always love you. Whitcomb has stirred your gratitude toward me. I don't care for it."

"Yes, I know," answered the girl, still holding him close.

"You wouldn't palm that off on me, would you?"

"I want to be fair" – the response was low. King's hands lay loosely before him. "All that I am sure of is that I belong to you, Bertram."

"Are you certain that's all? It's a good deal, but it's not enough."

Linda's bosom labored. She remembered the longings of the last weeks, the many moments of despair.

"Father loved you so," she uttered.

"That's not enough, either."

She drew herself gently away from him, but remained on her knees. He sat up in the low chair, and their faces were on a level. Into hers returned that look of riches unutterable and her eyes poured their gift into his. She clasped her hands across her breast as she gazed.

The arms that had held him so close and protectingly felt empty.

"I love you, Bertram," she said, the words falling from her lips like a vow.

Instantly the man's loose-lying hands became vital. King clasped her to him. Their cheeks clung together and they kissed.