Minutes went by without her speaking again. A strange hush fell about them. Sanford could hear the click of the old clock in the hall, and the monotonous song of the crickets in the grass below. A sense of great remoteness from her came over him. It was as though she had gone into a room alone with her griefs and her sobs, and had locked the door behind her. He had not meant to wound her by his questions, only to discover whether some new phase of the old grief were hurting her. If it were anything else but the sorrow he never touched, he stood ready to give her all his strength. He looked at her intently. She had never appeared to him so beautiful, so pathetic: there was a hopeless weariness in her pose that vibrated through him as nothing had done in months. The change in her mood had come suddenly, as all changes did in her, but to-night he seemed unable to meet them. A great rush of feeling surged over him. He stepped closer, lifting his hand to lay on her head. Then, with an abrupt gesture, he turned and began pacing the veranda, his head bowed, his hands clasped behind his back. Strange, unutterable thoughts whirled through his brain; unbidden, unspeakable words crowded in his throat. He made one great effort at self-control, stopped once more, this time laying his hand upon her shoulder. He felt in his heart that it was the same old sorrow which now racked her, but an uncontrollable impulse swept him on. All the restraint of years seemed slipping from him. “Kate, what is it? You break my heart. Is there something else to worry you,—something you haven’t told me?” She shivered slightly as she felt the hand tighten on her shoulder. Then a sudden, tingling thrill ran through her. “I have never any right to be unhappy when I have you, Henry. You are all the world to me,—all I have.” It was not the answer he had expected. For an instant the blood left his face, his heart stood still. Kate raised her head, and their eyes met. There are narrow paths in life where one fatal step sends a man headlong. There are eyes in women’s heads as deep as the abyss below. Hers were wide open, with the fearless confidence of an affection she was big enough to give. He saw down into their depths, and read there—as they flashed toward him in intermittent waves over the barrier of the reserve she sometimes held—love, truth, and courage. To disturb these, even by the sympathy she longed to receive and he to give, might, he knew, endanger the ideal of that loyalty to another in her which he venerated most. To go behind it and break down the wall of that self-control of hers which held in check the unknown, untouched springs of her heart might loosen a flood that would wreck the only bark which could keep them both afloat on the troubled waters of life,—their friendship. Sanford bent his head, raised her hand to his lips, kissed it reverently, and without a word walked slowly toward his chair.