“Yes, Oliver. It makes me happier than I ever was before in my life. I wish you could, for just one minute, know the feeling of loving some one as I do him.”
“Oh, Milly! Milly!”
It was a cry of anguish, wrung from a fainting heart, but Mildred thought it a cry of pain.
“What is it, Oliver?” she said, and her soft hand was laid on his face. “Where is the pain? Can I help it? Can I cure it? Oh, I wish I could. There, don’t that make it better?” and she kissed the pale lips where there was the shadow of a smile.
“Yes, I’m better,” he answered. “Don’t, Milly, please don’t,” and he drew back as he saw her about to repeat the kiss.
Mildred looked at him in surprise, saying:
“Why, Oliver, I thought you loved me.”
There was reproach in her soft, lustrous eyes, and folding his feeble arms about her, Oliver replied:
“Heaven grant that you may never know how much I love you, darling.”
She did not understand him even then, but satisfied that it was all well between them, she released herself from his embrace and continued: “Do you think he’ll write and finish what he was going to say?”