“Gordon!”
“Yes, dear,” he answered huskily.
“You may kiss me—if you will, Gordon. My lips are yours—just once—to-night—freely.”
He stole his arms about her soft shoulders as though he feared to profane and desecrate a holy thing. She raised her sweet face to his, fearlessly, poignantly, softened with the parting.
He kissed her. But it was not upon her lips. It was upon her fine, cold forehead.
The choice had been his. He could have tasted her lips, but he did not want to remember them—so. He had changed much in the last few years. He went away without that memory to haunt him.
He knew he had lost. Madelaine Theddon would never be his wife.
II
Gracia Theddon came home about eleven o’clock. Despite the iron gray in her hair, the years seemed to have had small effect upon her. She had changed little since that day at the Orphanage. But then, that might have been Madelaine and the great happiness she had found in her daughter.
“Madelaine!” she cried, “the boys are entraining to-night! Gordon’s company! We should have been told, so we could have gone to the station to see them off—why, Madelaine!—what’s the matter, child?”