He dropped his hand and felt for her hand; he was trying not to look into her face. “We have both suffered, Kate. We can never hate one another--we have suffered for each other's sake.” She clung tightly to the hand he gave her, and said, “Then you will never forsake me, whatever happens?” “Never, Kate, never,” he answered; and with a smothered cry she threw her arms about his neck. The rain continued to pour down on the roofs and on the tombs with a monotonous plash. “But what is to be done?” she said. “God knows,” he answered. “What is to become of us, Philip? Are we never to smile on each other again? We cannot carry a burden like this for ever. To-day, to-morrow, the next day, the next year--is it to go on like this for a lifetime? Is this life? Is there nothing that will end it?” “Yes, Kate, yes; there is one thing that will end it--one thing only.” “Do you mean--_death?_” He did not answer. She rose slowly from his side and returned to the window, rested her forehead against the pane, and looked down on the desolate churchyard and the sexton at his work in the rain. Suddenly she broke the silence. “Philip,” she said, “I know now what we ought to do. I wonder we have never thought of it before.” “What is it?” he asked. She was standing in front of him. Her breath came quickly. “Tell Pete that I am dead.” “No, no, no.” She took both his hands. “Yes, yes,” she said. He kept his face away from her. “Kate, what are you saying?” “What is more natural, Philip? Only think--if you had been anybody else, it would have come to that already. You must have hated me for dragging you down into this mire of deceit, you must have forsaken me, and I must have gone to wreck and ruin. Oh, I see it all--just as if it had really happened. A solitary room somewhere--alone--sinking--dying--unknown, unnamed--forgotten----” His eyes were wandering about the room. “It will kill him. If his heart can break, it will break it,” he said. “He has lived after a heavier blow than that, Philip. Do you think he is not suffering? For all his bright ways and hopeful talk and the letters and the presents, do you think he is not suffering?” He liberated his hands, and began to tramp the room as before, but with head down dud hands linked behind him. “It will be cruel to deceive him,” he said. “No, Philip, but kind. Death is not cruel. The wound it makes will heal. It won't bleed for ever. Once he thinks I am dead he will weep a little perhaps, and then “--she was stifling a sob--“then it will be all over. 'Poor girl,' he will say, 'she was much to blame. I loved her once, and never did her any wrong. But she is gone, and she was the mother of little Katherine--let us forget her faults'----” He had not heard her; he was standing before the window looking down. “You are right, Kate, I think you must be right.” “I'm sure I am.” “He will suffer, but he will get over it.”