"Greg," she said, "do you know what I'd like to be? I'd like to be
far away from cities and people, a fisherman's wife on an ocean
shore, with a baby coming every year, and just the delicious sea
to watch! I could be a good wife, Greg, if anybody really--loved
me!"
Laughing as she looked at him, she did not disguise the fact that
tears misted her lashes. Warren Gregory felt himself stirred as he
had not been before in his life.
"Well," he said, with an unsteady laugh, "you could be anything!
With you for his wife, what couldn't a man do!"
Hardly conscious of what he did or said, he got to his feet, and
she stood, too, smiling up at him. Both were breathing hard.
"To think," he said, with a sort of repressed violence, "that you,
of all women, should be Clarence Breckenridge's wife!"
"Not long!" she answered, in a whisper.
"You mean that you are really going to leave him, Rachael?"
"I mean that I must, Greg, if I am not to go mad!"
"And where will you go?" she asked.
"Oh--to Vera, to Elinor." She paused, frowning. "Or away by
myself," she decided suddenly. "Away from them all!"
"Rachael," he said quickly, "will you come to my mother?"
Rachael smiled. "To your mother!"
He read her incredulity in her voice.
"But she loves you," he said eagerly. "And she'd be--we'd both be
so proud to show people--to prove--that we knew where the right
lay!"
"My dear Don Quixote," she answered affectionately, "I love you
for asking me! But I will be better alone. I must think, and plan.
I've made a mess of my life so far, Greg; I must take the next
step carefully!"
He was clinging to her hands as she stood, in all her grave
beauty, before him.
"If I hadn't been such a bat, Rachael, all those eleven years
ago!" he said, daringly, breathlessly.
"Have we known each other so long, Greg?"
"Ever since that first visit of yours with little Persis Pomeroy!
And I remember you so well, Rachael. I remember that Bobby
Governeur was enslaved!"
"Dear old Bobby! But I don't remember you, Greg!"
"Because I was thirty then, my dear, and you were seventeen! I was
just home from four years' work in Germany; I was afraid of girls
your age!"
"Afraid--of ME?" The three words were like a caress, like holding
her in his arms.
"I'm afraid so!" he said, not quite steadily. "I'm afraid I've
always liked you too well. I--I CARE--that you're unhappy, that
you're unkindly treated. I--I--wish I could do something,
Rachael."