She clung to him, hiding her face against the rough tweed coat. "I've no one else," she sobbed.
"Ah!" Jake said. A very strange look came into his face. His mouth twitched a little as if in self-ridicule. "But, my girl," he said, "I reckon you'd say that to anyone to-night."
"No--no!" Quiveringly she answered him. "I say it to you--to you! I'm--so terribly--alone,--so--so--empty. Uncle Edward used to tell me--what it meant to be lonely. But I never knew it could be--like this."
"Poor girl!" Jake murmured softly. "I know--I know."
The look of faint irony still hovered about his lips, but his voice, his touch, conveyed nothing but tenderness. He was stroking the dark hair with a motherliness that was infinitely soothing.
She was holding his other hand tightly, tightly, against her breast, and it was wet with her tears. "I've been--so miserable," she told him brokenly. "I know it's been--no one's fault--but my own. But life is so difficult--so difficult. I've treated you badly--badly. I haven't done--my duty. I've always yearned for the things out of reach. And now--and now--oh, Jake, my world is a desert. I haven't a friend left anywhere."
"That's wrong," Jake said in his voice of soft decision. "You've got me. I mayn't be the special kind of friend you're wanting. But--as you say--I reckon I'm better than nothing. And I'm your husband anyway."
"My husband--yes. That's why--I sent for you, Jake," she hid her face lower, deeper into his coat, "if--if I had had--a child, would it--would it--have made you happy?"
"Oh, that!" Jake laid his head down suddenly on the pillow above hers. He spoke into the thick darkness of her hair. "My girl, don't cry so! I wanted it--yes!"
She moved slightly, stretched a hesitating hand upwards, touched his face, his neck. "Jake, it--it would make me happy--too."