It's too late to do anything. Oh, Ashley, men are supposed to know

such things--not women! You should have seen so clearly that you

loved her all the time and only wanted me like--like Rhett wants

that Watling woman!"

He winced at her words but his eyes still met hers, imploring

silence, comfort. Every line of his face admitted the truth of her

words. The very droop of his shoulders showed that his own self-

castigation was more cruel than any she could give. He stood

silent before her, clutching the glove as though it were an

understanding hand and, in the stillness that followed her words,

her indignation fell away and pity, tinged with contempt, took its

place. Her conscience smote her. She was kicking a beaten and

defenseless man--and she had promised Melanie that she would look

after him.

"And just as soon as I promised her, I said mean, hurting things to

him and there's no need for me to say them or for anyone to say

them. He knows the truth and it's killing him," she thought

desolately. "He's not grown up. He's a child, like me, and he's

sick with fear at losing her. Melly knew how it would be--Melly

knew him far better than I do. That's why she said look after him

and Beau, in the same breath. How can Ashley ever stand this? I

can stand it. I can stand anything. I've had to stand so much.

But he can't--he can't stand anything without her."

"Forgive me, darling," she said gently, putting out her arms. "I

know what you must be suffering. But remember, she doesn't know

anything--she never even suspected-- God was that good to us."

He came to her quickly and his arms went round her blindly. She

tiptoed to bring her warm cheek comfortingly against his and with

one hand she smoothed the back of his hair.

"Don't cry, sweet. She'd want you to be brave. She'll want to see

you in a moment and you must be brave. She mustn't see that you've

been crying. It would worry her."

He held her in a grip that made breathing difficult and his choking

Voice was in her ear.

"What will I do? I can't--I can't live without her!"

"I can't either," she thought, shuddering away from the picture of

the long years to come, without Melanie. But she caught herself in

a strong grasp. Ashley was depending on her, Melanie was depending

on her. As once before, in the moonlight at Tara, drunk, exhausted,

she had thought: "Burdens are for shoulders strong enough to carry

them." Well, her shoulders were strong and Ashley's were not. She

squared her shoulders for the load and with a calmness she was far

from feeling, kissed his wet cheek without fever or longing or

passion, only with cool gentleness.

"We shall manage--somehow," she said.

A door opened with sudden violence into the hall and Dr. Meade

called with sharp urgency:

"Ashley! Quick!"

"My God! She's gone!" thought Scarlett. "And Ashley didn't get to

tell her good-by! But maybe--"

"Hurry!" she cried aloud, giving him a push, for he stood staring

like one stunned. "Hurry!"

She pulled open the door and motioned him through. Galvanized by

her words, he ran into the hall, the glove still clasped closely in

his hand. She heard his rapid steps for a moment and then the

closing of a door.

She said, "My God!" again and walking slowly to the bed, sat down

upon it and dropped her head in her hands. She was suddenly tired,

more tired than she had ever been in all her life. With the sound

of the closing door, the strain under which she had been laboring,

the strain which had given her strength, suddenly snapped. She

felt exhausted in body and drained of emotions. Now she felt no

sorrow or remorse, no fear or amazement. She was tired and her

mind ticked away dully, mechanically, as the clock on the mantel.

Out of the dullness, one thought arose. Ashley did not love her

and had never really loved her and the knowledge did not hurt. It

should hurt. She should be desolate, broken hearted, ready to

scream at fate. She had relied upon his love for so long. It had

upheld her through so many dark places. Yet, there the truth was.

He did not love her and she did not care. She did not care because

she did not love him. She did not love him and so nothing he could

do or say could hurt her.

She lay down on the bed and put her head on the pillow tiredly.

Useless to try to combat the idea, useless to say to herself: "But

I do love him. I've loved him for years. Love can't change to

apathy in a minute."

But it could change and it had changed.

"He never really existed at all, except in my imagination," she

thought wearily. "I loved something I made up, something that's

just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell

in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome,

so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether

it fitted him or not. And I wouldn't see what he really was. I

kept on loving the pretty clothes--and not him at all."

Now she could look back down the long years and see herself in

green flowered dimity, standing in the sunshine at Tara, thrilled

by the young horseman with his blond hair shining like a silver

helmet. She could see so clearly now that he was only a childish

fancy, no more important really than her spoiled desire for the

aquamarine earbobs she had coaxed out of Gerald. For, once she

owned the earbobs, they had lost their value, as everything except

money lost its value once it was hers. And so he, too, would have

become cheap if, in those first far-away days, she had ever had the

satisfaction of refusing to marry him. If she had ever had him at

her mercy, seen him grown passionate, importunate, jealous, sulky,

pleading, like the other boys, the wild infatuation which had

possessed her would have passed, blowing away as lightly as mist

before sunshine and light wind when she met a new man.

"What a fool I've been," she thought bitterly. "And now I've got

to pay for it. What I've wished for so often has happened. I've

wished Melly was dead so I could have him. And now she's dead and