“It’s nothing—­nothing at all,” he said, while his voice jumped out of all control.  “When are you—­going away?”

“I do not know—­not for some time.”

He had supposed she would go to-morrow with her uncle and—­the other, to be with them through their travail.

With warm impetuosity she began:  “It was a noble thing you did to-day.  Oh, I am glad and proud.”

“I prefer you to think of me in that way, rather than as the wild beast you saw this morning, for I was mad, perfectly mad with hatred and revenge, and every wild impulse that comes to a defeated man.  You see, I had played and lost, played and lost, again and again, till there was nothing left.  What mischance brought you there?  It was a terribly brutal thing, but you can’t understand.”

“But I can understand.  I do.  I know all about it now.  I know the wild rage of desperation; I know the exultation of victory; I know what hate and fear are now.  You told me once that the wilderness had made you a savage, and I laughed at it just as I did when you said that my contact with big things would teach me the truth, that we’re all alike, and that those motives are in us all.  I see now that you were right and I was very simple.  I learned a great deal last night.”

“I have learned much also,” said he.  “I wish you might teach me more.”

“I—­I—­don’t think I could teach you any more,” she hesitated.

He moved as though to speak, but held back and tore his eyes away from her.

“Well,” she inquired, gazing at him covertly.

“Once, a long time ago, I read a Lover’s Petition, and ever since knowing you I have made the constant prayer that I might be given the purity to be worthy the good in you, and that you might be granted the patience to reach the good in me—­but it’s no use.  But at least I’m glad we have met on common ground, as it were, and that you understand, in a measure.  The prayer could not be answered; but through it I have found myself and—­I have known you.  That last is worth more than a king’s ransom to me.  It is a holy thing which I shall reverence always, and when you go you will leave me lonely except for its remembrance.”

“But I am not going,” she said.  “That is—­unless—­”

Something in her voice swept his gaze back from the shimmering causeway that rippled seaward to the rising moon.  It brought the breath into his throat, and he shook as though seized by a great fear.

“Unless—­what?”

“Unless you want me to.”

“Oh, God! don’t play with me!” He flung out his hand as though to stop her while his voice died out to a supplicating hoarseness.  “I can’t stand that.”

“Don’t you see?  Won’t you see?” she asked.  “I was waiting here for the courage to go to you since you have made it so very hard for me—­my pagan.”  With which she came close to him, looking upward into his face, smiling a little, shrinking a little, yielding yet withholding, while the moonlight made of her eyes two bottomless, boundless pools, dark with love, and brimming with the promise of his dreams.