“Good-bye!” He held out his hand to her, but she looked him full in the face.
“Good-bye!” she said, and then turned quickly, and in a moment the door was closed between them.
He did not see her hurry away, her hands pressed against her breast. He did not see the face, all womanly and sweet, and soft and tender now. He had only the memory of her brief farewell, the memory of her cold, steady eyes—nothing else beside.
CHAPTER XIII
THE GENERAL CONFESSES
“My dear, my dear, life is short. I am an old man, and yet looking back it seems but yesterday since I was a boy beginning life. Climbing the hill, my dear, climbing the hill; and when the top was gained, when I stood there in my young manhood, I thought that the world belonged to me. And then the descent, so easy and so swift. The years seem long when one is climbing, but they are as weeks when the top is passed and the descent into the valley begins.” He paused. He passed his hand across his forehead. “I meant to speak of something else, of you, child, of your life, of love and happiness, and of those things that should be dear to all us humans.”
“I know nothing of love, and of happiness but very, very little,” she said.
He took her hand and held it. “You shall know of both!” he promised. “There is strife, there is ill-feeling between you and that lad, your husband.”
She wrenched her hand free, her face flushed gloriously.
“You!” she cried. “You too !”