Putnam patriot., 1914-01-30

1Ou NUuiu nave Udu lO. 1Ou Cuuiu HUI have deceived me like this. Love doesn't feed on lies. It was my right to know everything, so that I could decide my own course. Instead, you have led me into this trap. There is no escape now. And it is too late to reproach you or to try to make you realize what you have done. You say your love for me kept you from tell ing? Believe that, if it is any com fort to you. r."
 You say I don't know what true love is," she laughed bitterly. I'm afraid 1 can never learn it from you So your love has died? Love cant dle, any more than God can die. You have never loved me-"
 "I-"
 Never. I see now that you didn't For you don't know what love means. l lived for you. Every thought and word and act of mine was shaped foI you. And for you alone. l knew you, I knew your faults. your follies, your brute savagery. And I loved you for them asswell as for the good that was in you. But what was it you lovedi The woman you married--or snow. white saintly reputation? If you cared only for the reputation-that is gone forever. But if you loved me-the woman I am-then I've been every. thing you thought I was and wanted me to be--eyer since the first moment you had the right to think of me at all gave you my life, from that time on and forever. And 1t has been al y0urs, Before then, 1t was mine"
 And yet you let me believe It was everything-your whole life-youz Erst soye.'
 'Tt was. All that was worth the the giving. It was my self. Oh, cana you see that a woman's body and heart and soul belong not to her first lover but to her first love? No woman can even guess what love is until she has found it. And I found it only when I knew you. I gave you every. thing.
 'I'm trying to make it easy. We've never had a real quarrel. you and I. Mark. So don't let us wind up our married life with one, now. You are in the right. I am hopelessly in the wrong. I have cheated you. I admit it, and I'll accept the consequences. 1t is in the blood. There is much in heredity My father is 'a-politician. 1 don't know who my grandfather was. And if he had been worth knowing about, I'd know. There is a bad strain running through the family It cropped out in me. Yes, I have cheated you. You had the right to demand in our bargain the hard-and-fast terms the world has decreed: Allof a wife's life in exchange for a frayed and battered remnant of her ihusband'e. I can't meet those terms, though I tried to fool you into believing I could. So I must smeekly give up the love whose price I can't pay. Don't let's make 1t harder by having scene over 1t. Good night. I'll stay with father until you can decide just what you want to do and on what basis we're to sepa- rate. If it would do any good to ask your forgiveness I'd ask it. That's all. Good night, Mark"
 She held out her hand with a shy wistfulness. He was staring straight into her tortured eyes and did not see the gesture. The hand dropped back Imply to her side, and she moved to rejoin Blake.
 But at the first step, Mark barred her way She looked at him in tired wonder His face was set and hard. He made no move to touch her. His voice, when he spoke, grated like a file. as he forced it between his un- willing lips.
 Grace" he began. I've told you my love is dead And I He'd when I said it. I planned to put you out of my life. And, even while I planned. knew I couldn't do it. It doesn't mat ter what l want to do or what I ought to do. Out of all this hideous tangle, blazes forth just one thing that must do whether l want to or not I must go on loving you with all my strength and life
 Do you mean," she panted wildly. "do you mean that you can-that you will"
 'I mean,"'he cried brokenly, h6s self control smashing to atoms under the hammer blows of his heart, T mean there is nothing in all this world for me, dear love, away from you! l love you. And cant go on without you You are earth and heaven and hell to me. I love you. And I have forgotten everything but that. Girl of my heart, will you let me make you forget. toos Oh, love youi I love youi"