Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/357

Her arms encircled him; he was enclosed, as it were, within the greedy emotion of her love. Her face, moist with tears, entreated him. with a quick access of affection. He bent and kissed her.

"I think we must not misunderstand each other, Marion," he said. She lifted her face against his with a little shudder.

"O darling," she sighed, "I am mad, I am mad. Of course I know. But you see, dear, it is this way. Now I know that you care for me, and never cared for her. It's bad enough like that, isn't it, dear Frank? But we won't think of that. I am your only love. Men make mistakes; there are many fancies, but only one thing is real. Isn't that it?"

"Yes, dear, yes," he murmured tenderly.

He was engaged in the proximity of her beauty. He felt that he loved her. No shadow of the dead fell across that reconciliation.

"We will never think of it again," he whispered.

"Never, never," she murmured tenderly. "We will destroy all traces that might bring bitterness. Come," she cried, starting from him impulsively, "let us do so now."

"What do you mean, dear?" he asked softly.

"The—the photograph," she answered. "Let us burn all our misunderstandings with it."

She caught his hand, and the warmth of her touch stirred him. He followed her from the room into his study.

Marion opened the drawer and withdrew the picture. She held it averted from her.

"Take it, dear, take it," she cried tremulously. She thrust it into Gregory's hand, and, still with his clasp in hers, he contemplated in silence the faded lineaments. A vague sense of pitifulness crept over him. The claims, embodied in that face, aroseresurgent