He felt, when he had said it, that the words, in spite of his care, were cruel; that she would feel them as cruel; he had gone too fast; had tried to grasp at his immunity too hastily.
"Nicholas!" she gasped. "You speak as if I were accusing you!"
"Accusing me, darling! How could you be! Of what?"
"Oh, Nick," she sobbed, hiding her face on his breast,—"Am I tiring you? Do you sometimes want me to go away and to leave you more alone?"
His heart stood still. Over her bowed head he looked at the sunlit trees and flowers, the hazy glory of the summer day, a phantasmagoric setting to this knot of human pain and fear, and he said to himself that unless he were very careful he might hurt her irremediably; he might rob her of the memory that was to beautify everything when he was gone.
He had found in a moment, he felt sure, just the right quiet tone, expressing a comprehension too deep for the fear of any misunderstanding between them. "There would be no me left, Kitty, if you went away. I am you—all that there is of me. You are life itself; don't talk of robbing me of any of it; I have so little left."
She was silent for a moment, not lifting her face, no longer weeping. Then in a voice curiously hushed and controlled she said: "How quiet you are; how peaceful you are—how terribly peaceful."
"You want me to be at peace, don't you, dear?"
"You don't mind leaving life. You don't mind leaving me," she said.
"Kitty—Kitty——"