"To be just a little while longer with you. I dread to-night, I dread the next few nights to come. I shall see his eyes. I shall hear that sound in his voice when he called to her. I shall see that brave look in her face, and hear that whole speech of her sacrifice as we stood by the door. My God! What wonderful things women can be when they love." "She’s so gentle and yet so brave," said Jill. "Brave!" he echoed it, but it had not the force of all he felt. "Great Heavens! Think of her there now, alone. Everything but us gone out of her life; a sudden rent in the clouds--just a flash, and but for us, in that moment she’s made destitute. And then, with a smile in her eyes, to give up what little she has. And I, to have to accept it. Lord! what a fool I’ve been. I remember that day when Mrs. Morrell’s sandy cat came slouching into the room and I’d just received the letter saying she would write no more of you. I took that confounded cat into my confidence--’The little old lady wants a love story,’ I said. And the cat seemed to wink as though it had no objection to hearing one, too. Then I began. Lord! what a child I am. Not the faintest idea of the future! No conception of consequence! Just a blind idea of doing things as they come, without the smallest consideration of results! I never foresaw that it was going to lead to this. What a child! My heavens! What a child! He was a child! She’s a child! I’m a child, too! We’re a family of children, not fit for one of the responsibilities of life." "Do you think you’re any the worse for that?" she asked softly. "I don’t know," he shrugged his shoulders. "Upon my soul, it seems now the greatest crime a man can commit. In a world of grown-up men and women who can pay their rents and taxes, meet their bills and save their money, to be a child is a monstrous, a heinous crime." "Only to those who don’t understand," she answered. "Well--and who does?" "I do." "You do? Yes, I know that--but how can you help? You’ve done more than a thousand women would have done. You helped me to make his passing a happy one; you can’t do more than that. You’re even going to stay on a few days longer to help this fool of a child still more. That proves you understand. I know you understand--God bless you." He shrank into himself despairingly. His whole body seemed to contract in the pain of self-condemnation, and he pressed his hands violently over his eyes. Suddenly, he felt her move. He took his hands away and found her kneeling at his feet, that white face of ivory turned up to his, her eyes dimmed with tears. "Do you call it understanding if I leave you now--little child?" she whispered, and her voice was like the sound in a long-dreamt dream which, on the morning, he had forgotten and striven to remember ever since.