"Oh, I know," he flashed back, bitterly. "I"ve lost any shadow of right I might ever have had, because I was a blind fool, and I never had any chance anyway. All I can do is to go on loving you, needing you, wanting you; seeing your face before me every hour of the day and night, thirsting for you with every fibre of me. All I have to keep is an empty husk of memory--those few weeks you were kind to me. At least I had you with me, though your heart belonged to someone else."
"Someone else?" she repeated, curiously. The colour was coming back slowly now.
"Yes. Have you forgotten you told me? That day, don"t you remember, you said you had loved another man who did not care for you?"
Rose nodded. Her face was like a crimson flower swaying on a slender stem. "I said," she began, "that I had loved a man who did not care for me, and that I always would. Wasn"t that it?"
"Something like that. I wish to G.o.d I could change places with him."
"Did I," hesitated Rose, "are you sure--that I said--another man, or was it just--a man?"
"Rose! What do you mean?"
Covered with lovely confusion, she stumbled over to the window, where she might hide her burning face from him. "Don"t you think," she asked, unsteadily, "that it is beautiful here? This is Aunt Francesca"s little house, where she came when she was first married. She always calls it "the little house where Love lived.""
"And I came here," she went on, courageously, "because, in a house where Love--had lived, I thought there might be some--for--"
Her voice trailed off into an indistinct murmur. "Rose," cried Allison, "couldn"t you give me just what I had before? Couldn"t we go back, and never mind the other man?"
"There"s never any going back," she answered, in a whisper. Her heart was beating wildly because he was so near. "And did I say--are you sure I said--another man?"
"Rose! Rose! Look at me! Tell me, for G.o.d"s sake, who he was--or is. I can"t bear it!"
She turned toward him. "Look," she said, softly. "Look in my face and see."
For a tense instant he hesitated. Then, with a little cry of joy, he clasped her close forever, having seen his own face mirrored in her happy eyes.
THE END