All memory of the bitterness and the cruel disappointment that he
had brought into her life had rolled away from her during those
still hours of watching. She did not think of herself at all; only
of Guy, once so eager and full of sparkling hope, now so tragically
fallen in the race of life. All her woman's tenderness was awake
and throbbing with a passionate pity for this lover of her youth.
Why, oh why had he done this thing? The horror of it oppressed her
like a crushing, physical weight. Was it for this that she had
persuaded Burke to rescue him from the depths to which he had sunk?
Had she by her rash interference only precipitated his final
doom--she who had suffered so deeply for his sake, who had yearned
so ardently to bring him back?
Burke had been against it from the beginning; Burke knew to his
cost the hopelessness of it all. Ah, would it have been better if
she had listened to him and refrained from attempting the
impossible? Would it not have been preferable to accept failure
rather than court disaster? What had she done? What had she done?
"Sylvia!"
Surely the old Guy was speaking to her! Those pallid lips could
make no sound; the new, strange Guy was dead.
As in a dream, she answered him through the silence, feeling as if
she spoke into the shadows of the Unknown.
"Yes, Guy? Yes? I am here.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208