THE TOUCHSTONE
thing from her—everything—even to the poor shelter of loyalty she'd trusted in—the only thing I could have left her!—I took everything from her, I deceived her, I despoiled her, I destroyed her—and she's given me you in return!"
His wife's cry caught him up. "It is n't that she's given me to you—it is that she's given you to yourself." She leaned to him as though swept forward on a wave of pity. "Don't you see," she went on, as his eyes hung on her, that that's the gift you can't escape from, the debt you're pledged to acquit? Don't you see that you've never before been what she thought you, and that now, so wonderfully, she's made you into the man she loved? That's worth suffering for, worth dying for, to a woman—that's the gift she would have wished to give!"
"Ah," he cried, "but woe to him by whom it cometh. What did I ever give her?"
"The happiness of giving," she said.
THE END
