“She will die, Emily,” he found voice enough to say when the cup was empty; “and I cannot survive her.”

“Yes, you can; but I hope she will not die, dear John.  Why should she live so long, to die after all?”

She leaned toward him, and, putting her arms about him, supported his head on her shoulder, and held it there with her hand.  At least that once her love demanded of her that she should draw near. She should not die; perhaps there was a long life before her; perhaps this might be the only moment she might have to look back to, when she had consoled and satisfied her unheeded heart.

“Have you so soon forgotten hope?” she said as she withdrew her arms.

“I thought I had.”

“They always say she is not worse; not to be worse is to be better.”

“They never say that, and I shall not forgive myself.”

“No?” she exclaimed, and sighed.  There was, indeed, so little hope, and if the child died, what might not be feared for the father?  “That is because, though you seem a reverent and sincere Christian, you do not believe with enough reality that the coming life is so much sweeter, happier, better, than this.  Few of us can.  If you did, this tragedy could not fold itself down so darkly over your head.  You could not bring yourself almost to the point of dying of pity and self-blame, because your child is perhaps to taste immortal happiness the sooner for your deplored mistake.  Oh! men and women are different.”

“You do not think you could have outlived a misfortune so irreparable?”

“I do think so.  And yet this is sad; sometimes I cannot bear to think of it.  Often I can find in my heart to wish that I might have handed that glass in your stead.  Even if it had broken my heart, I stand alone; no other lives depend on me for well-being, and perhaps for well-doing.  Cannot you think of this, dear John, and try to bear it and overlive it for their sakes?  Look, day begins to dawn, and the morning star flickers.  Come in; cannot you rise?”

“I suppose not; I have tried.  You will not go?”

“Yes; I may be wanted.”

“You have no resentments, Emily?”

“Oh no,” she answered, understanding him.

“Then give me one kiss.”

“Yes.”  She stooped again toward him and gave it.  “You are going to live, John, and serve and love God, and even thank Him in the end, whatever happens.”

“You are helping me to live,” he answered.

It seemed impossible to him to say a single word more, and she went back towards the house again, moving more quickly as she drew near, because the sound of wheels was audible.  As for him, he watched in the solemn dawn her retiring figure with unutterable regret.  His other despair, who had talked to him of hope and consoled him with a simple directness of tender humanity, given him a kiss because he asked it.  He had often wanted a woman’s caressing affection before, and gone without it.  It promised nothing, he thought; he perceived that it was the extremity she saw in the situation that had prompted it.  When she next met him she would not, he knew, be ashamed of her kiss.  If she thought about it, she would be aware that he understood her, and would not presume on it.