For a time they sat in silence. His own whirling thoughts were of a sort that he could not fathom; they possessed him completely, they destroyed, seemingly, all power of analysis, they made him dumb; and they were tangled inextricably in the blended impressions of possession and loss. "But you," she said at last, "is your father living?" "No," he replied. "And your mother?" she faltered. "She has been dead many years. And I have no brothers or sisters." "My mother died when I was a little child," she mused. "Death seemed to me much more awful then than it does now." "It is always more awful to those who are left than to those who go," he said. "But don't think of that yet." "We _must_ think of it," she insisted. He did not answer. "You don't wish to die, do you?" she demanded. "No; and I don't wish you to die. Try to take a different view, Girl. We really have a chance of getting out." "How?" "Someone may come." "Not at all likely," she sighed. "But a chance is a chance, Girl, dear." "Oh!" she cried, suddenly. "To think that I have brought you to this! That what you thought would be a little favor to me has brought you to death." She began to sob convulsively. It was as though for the first time she realized her responsibility for his life; as though her confidence in her complete understanding of him had disappeared and he was again a stranger to her--a stranger whom she had coolly led to the edge of life with her. "Don't, Girl--don't!" he commanded. Her self-blame was terrible to him. But she could not check her grief, and finally, hardly knowing what he did, he put his arm around her and drew her closer to him. Her tear-wet cheek touched his. She had removed her hat, and her hair brushed his forehead. "Girl, Girl!" he whispered, "don't you know?--Don't you understand? If chance had not kept us together, I would have followed you until I won you. From the moment I saw you, I have had no thought that was not bound up with you." "But think what I have done to you!" she sobbed. "I never realized that there was this danger. And you--you have your own friends, your interests. Oh, I----" "My interests are all here--with you," he answered. "It is I who am to blame. I should have known what Alcatrante would do." "You couldn't know. There was no way----" "I sent you up here to wait for me. Then, when he and I came in, I turned my back on him, like a blind fool." "No, no," she protested. "After all," he said, "it was, perhaps, something that neither you nor I could foresee. No one is to blame. Isn't that the best view to take of it?" Her cheek moved against his as she inclined her head. "It may be selfish in me," he went on, "but I can't feel unhappy--now." Her sobs had ceased, and she buried her face in his shoulder.