"It will be easier—"
Yet his arms still held her close to him, and he gazed down into the upturned face that rested against his breast. It was his keen sense of her suffering that weighed on him now. What a wreck he had made of her life—what infinite compassion and pity he felt! He held her closer.
"What is it, dear?" she asked.
But he could not translate his feeling into words.
"Oh, if there were only something we could do!" she moaned.
"Through all these weeks you have given me hope and strength! You say that I am brave! Your love and devotion have lifted me out of myself; I would be ashamed to be a coward when I think of all you have endured!"
He felt her shiver in his arms, then in the momentary silence the court-house bell struck the half-hour.
"I thought it was later," she said, as the stroke of the bell died out in the stillness.
"It is best that you should leave this place, dearest—"
"Don't send me from you, John—I can not bear that yet—" she implored.