The Eagle's Shadow

by James Branch Cabell

to prove it wasn't so.

"Why, dear me, Mr. Woods," she retorted, carelessly, "what else could

I think?"

Here Mr. Woods blundered.

"Ah, think what you will, Peggy!" he cried, his big voice cracking and

sobbing and resonant with pain. "Ah, my dear, think what you will, but

don't grieve for it, Peggy! Why, if I'm all you say I am, that's no

reason you should suffer for it! Ah, don't, Peggy! In God's name,

don't! I can't bear it, dear," he pleaded with her, helplessly.

Billy was suffering, too. But her sorrow was the chief of his, and