Page:The unhallowed harvest (1917).djvu/381

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376
THE UNALLOWED HARVEST

you. And of course I didn't charge it up to you. Nobody does, Farrar. You can rest easy on that score. It was just one of those things that neither of you could help."

"Thank you, Barry!"

"And that reminds me. That night when I saw her last—it was last Sunday; God in heaven! but it seems a year—well, that night she asked me to do her one favor. She said she was going away. She said if you ever found out what she said on the factory steps that day of the riot, I should tell you that it was true; I should tell you that because she loved you she was going to drop out of your life forever—drop out—of your life—forever."

Barry straightened himself out as he sat, thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, and stared hard at the back of the seat in front of him. Something in the last phrase that had left his lips had set his brain to whirling again. The rector laid a comforting hand on his knee.

"You are very kind to tell me this," he said. "You have a big and generous heart, Barry. We can each mourn over her fate, without entrenching on the domain of the other."

Apparently Barry did not hear him. He was still staring at the back of the seat, and the muscles of his jaws could be seen moving under the pallid skin of his face. But he roused himself, after a moment, and said:

"I told her I would; sure I would. And then, Farrar, do you know what she did? Do you know?"

"No, Barry."

"Well—I wouldn't whisper it to another human being but you, you know that, it's too—sacred."

His voice choked a little, but he went on:

"Well—she put her arms around my neck—and kissed me."

He did not give way to tears nor manifest any of the