Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/352

panied his feelings. Marion moved convulsively and gave no answer.

"Come, dear," he repeated affectionately.

She broke out weeping, and he gathered her in his arms, hushing her as he would a child upon his knee. He was sure that his heart was buried with Dorothea, and it was duty to console and soothe this poor girl with fraternal solicitude. Suddenly she sprang from him.

"No, no," she cried between her sobs; "your arms have been about her; her head has rested on you. Oh, my God, Frank! Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't I realise? You have given me nothing—I have only the remnants. You are divided between me and the dead."

"No, no, no," he urged softly; "you are overwrought; you are foolish, Marion. This is being morbid." He would not deny the re-arisen love. It had broken its grave, and come forth, and its arms were about him.

She clung to him; she whispered passionately in his ear: she pleaded with him to dishonour and annul that old affection so associated with memories. And slowly in the accession of her neighbourhood, and under the warm spell of her arms, the forlorn images which he had entertained in his fancy retreated. Her clasp stirred him; the grace of her slender body, abandoned to this agony of weeping, shook him; her face, superfluous with its tears, invited his hesitant lips. He drew her closer, whispering to her questions.

"Yes, yes, you know I love you, dear," he murmured; "and you are first, darling, you are first."

Before this renunciation that freshly-awakened ghost withdrew reluctant. She was denied her dignity; her attendance was discharged. Beneath the earth, where Dorothea's gracious hearthad