long as you feel like this. I hope you won't _too_ long--for--I love you,
and want you, and--and need you so much--and--I've waited a year for you
already. But I promise never to force--or even urge--you in any way, if
you'll promise me that when you _are_ ready--you'll tell me."

"I will," she sobbed, with her head hidden on his shoulder.

"Then that's settled, and needn't even be brought up again. Don't cry so,
honey. Is there anything else?"

"Just one thing more; and in a way, it's the hardest to say of any."

"Well, tell me, anyway; perhaps I may be able to help."

"My baby," she said, speaking with great difficulty, "the poor little
thing that only lived two weeks. It's buried in the same lot with--its
father--at Greenwood. I never can go near that place again. I've paid
some one to take care of it, and Uncle Mat has promised me to see that
it's done. I think some day you and I--will have a son--more than one, I
hope--and he will _live_! But if this--this baby--could be taken away
from where he is now, and buried in that little cemetery, you know--I
could go sometimes, quite happily, and stay with him, and put flowers on
his little grave; and later on there could be a stone which said, merely,
'Harold, infant son of Sylvia--Gray.'"

Apparently Austin forgot what he had said that morning, for long before
she had finished he took her in his arms; but the kisses with which he
covered her face and hair were like those he would have given to a little
child, and there was no need of an answer this time. For a long while she
lay there, clinging to him and crying, until she was utterly spent with