Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/356

indeed under the stress of feelings that could find no issue in language.

He rose, and the sound distracted her. She clutched him fiercely by the arm.

"It was true?" she asked, fixing him with her scornful eyes.

"What was true?" he asked, shifting his glance uneasily.

"You were thinking of—why, what was her name? I ought to have informed myself of that long ago."

She laughed hysterically. He shook off her hand; the woman was blatant, and deserved no consideration.

"It was true that I was thinking of past episodes in my life which were more pleasant than the present," he said slowly, and with the intention to hurt her.

She rose with a cry from her stool, and, with blazing eyes, confronted him a moment. Then, with a swift change, the whole aspect of her face was struck to despair. She sprang to him.

"Oh, my God! don't say that, Frank, don't say that. Oh, you will break my heart—you are killing me."

She broke into convulsive sobbing; a great, dull pain throbbed in her side. Mechanically he patted her.

"There, there," he said.

"Don't you see you are killing me?" she murmured. "Oh, you don't know. You kill me. Oh, my God! I don't want to hear her name. Say, you lied, you lied. You did not think of her, did you—did you, Frank?"

The desolation of that clinging figure touched him.

"No, no," he said soothingly, "no, no, dear. You—you are mistaken. But you aggravated me. You—"

"Yes, yes, forgive me," she pleaded. "I know it was only the piece itself affected you. We have both been melancholy to-day. Oh, Frank, Frank!"

Her