When he turned to her at last she was looking at the picture with such
love in her eyes as he had never seen. Her lips were parted--tremulous;
there were tears upon her cheeks; her whole face quivered with love and
longing. He saw then, in that one glance before he turned away, that time
and death held no sway over such a love as this.
"I did not mean to," she faltered. "But I have not seen the picture
myself for a long time, and your being here--"
She broke down there, and he summoned no word with which to answer her
sobs.
"Dr. Parkman,"--raising a passionate face--"I want you to know that if
this were the greatest picture the world had ever seen--if it were a
thousand times greater than anything the world had ever known--I would
throw it away--obliterate it--gladly--joyously--for just one touch of
Karl's hand!"
"Yes," he murmured, more to himself than to her, "and if you were not
like that you never could have done it."
"What it cost!"--he heard her whisper. "What it _cost_!"
He told her that it had ever been so.
Pages:
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476