Claire

"I don"t know. I wish I did."

"You might find it, as you once said, in creative work."

"No, that isn"t a salvation. I must have a platform from which to work.

Don"t you see that, Claire?"

"I don"t understand anything about it."

"Pardon me, I didn"t intend to force this upon you."

"That isn"t what I mean, Lawrence." Her eyes were moist. "What I meant was that you live above me entirely."

"Nonsense," he said wrathfully. "You talk like a silly girl, Claire."

"Do I? Well, I am perhaps less worth while than you think."

"Oh, I guess not," he returned carelessly.

She covered her face with her hands.

"I know you are worth all that I think you are," he continued. "But I am afraid that just now I am too interested in my own salvation to think of you at all correctly."

"Yes," she observed wearily.

She was thinking of Philip as he had comforted her that morning, and his tenderness, compared to this cold statement from Lawrence, seemed attractive beyond measure. She admitted that all hope of Lawrence"s loving her was dead, and she said to herself: "It is what I wanted. I can go back to my husband." But she did not want to go back to Howard.

She received this discovery calmly. She would never go back. But why shouldn"t she? She could not tell for certain. She thought it was because she had found herself unworthy, but deep within her was the knowledge that she no longer loved him. It would be useless to go back to him in any event. He could never be the same to her after hearing of her long months with this blind man in the wilderness.

What months they had been! She thought them over, day by day, and she saw what might have been a great joy sink, after a glimpse, into utter darkness. Before her she saw the endless gray years beside Philip. Yes, she would stay with him. At least he loved her, and she could help him.

If she did not love him, what of it? She would be an able wife to him.

She could keep him from ever knowing that her heart was away with Lawrence, who would be back in the world at home and have forgotten her.

"Claire!" Lawrence was speaking. "We have certainly reaped a strange harvest from our months of sowing in the wilderness."

"Yes."

"Whatever brought it about?"

"I don"t know."

"Perhaps it was fate, that you should teach me where I stand in life."

"Perhaps."

"And perhaps you, too, will find that I have been of some value when we are separated."

"It may be."

"I wish things might have gone differently."

"They didn"t."

"No, and they can"t. Well, let them be as they are."

"I guess we"ll have to, Lawrence."

A few minutes later, when she looked at him, he was asleep.

CHAPTER XV.

UTTER EXHAUSTION.

Claire rose and slipped quietly to her own bed. All the aching pain of her proposed future came over her with its dirty sordidness. She could never stand it, she thought, and clenched her teeth. Well, it was not necessary. When Lawrence was gone, there was the lake. That would be her way out of it all. No one need ever know. The thought of death seemed very sweet to her.

Philip came in, saw Lawrence asleep, and stole across the room to peep in at her. She met his glance.

"I beg your pardon," he murmured.

"Never mind," she answered dully. "Come in if you like."

He hesitated, then stepped through, and let the curtain fall behind him.

"May I sit here?" he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Why not?" Her voice was colorless. "Only please speak softly. Don"t wake Lawrence."

"He"ll feel better after his sleep, I think."

"I hope so."

He sat looking down into her dark, clouded eyes. There was something so tragic, so sad, and so submissive in them that he was filled with utter tenderness.

"Claire," he whispered, "what is the matter?"

"Nothing. I"m quite well."

"You look absolutely desolate."

"I don"t especially feel so."

"Are you happy?"

"I don"t know."

He stooped over her, studying her face. She did not move, only her deep, dark eyes looked up coldly into his. He took the hand which she did not draw away, and whispered: "Claire, let me make you happy."