Yet no, there was no wrong. His love was worship, instinct with reverence, he could not for that very love's sake destroy its object.
"You want me to go away and leave you alone, Cherokee?" he asked.
"No, Marrion, no! I am too much alone, and that makes me hungry, desperately hungry, for companionship," she stammered. "But, tell me, how is Robert?"
"No better; I am almost ashamed to ask you to be brave any more, for I've hoped so long without fulfillment."
She answered: "I ask myself how long this banishment is to last—this exile from joy."
"Everything here has an end; the brighter side may come at last."
"No, it will never come, it is all a mistake; even life itself."
"Oh, don't say that, Cherokee; I am with you. Don't you care for" Here he stopped, but she understood, and her answer, said in silence, was the sweetest word of all.
"I must speak this once at any cost—Great God! and forgive me, I love her so," he whispered, as he seized her listless form, so unresisting, and wildly kissed her brow, her lips, her hair, her eyelids—sealed her to him by those
