ming
courage to her eyes--a courage that deepened in them when he had
presently got to what he did want. He had delayed after she had joined
him not much more than long enough for him to say to her, drawing her
hand into his arm and turning off where they had turned of old, that he
wouldn't pretend he hadn't lately had moments of not quite believing he
should ever again be so happy. She answered, passing over the reasons,
whatever they had been, of his doubt, that her own belief was in high
happiness for them if they would only have patience; though nothing at
the same time could be dearer than his idea for their walk. It was only
make-believe of course, with what had taken place for them, that they
couldn't meet at home; she spoke of their opportunities as suffering at
no point. He had at any rate soon let her know that he wished the
present one to suffer at none, and in a quiet spot, beneath a great
wintry tree, he let his entreaty come sharp.

"We've played our dreadful game and we've lost. We owe it to ourselves,
we owe it to our feeling _for_ ourselves and for each other, not to
wait another day. Our marriage will--fundamentally, somehow, don't you
see?--right everything that's wrong, and I can't express to you my
impatience. We've only to announce it--and it takes off the weight."

"To 'announce' it?" Kate asked. She spoke as if not understanding,
though she had listened to him without confusion.

"To accomplish it then--to-morrow if you will; _do_ it and announce it
as done. That's the least part of it--after it nothing will matter. We
shall be so right," he said, "that we shall be strong; we shall only
wonder at our past fear. It will seem an ugly madness. It will seem a
bad dream."

She looked at him without flinching--with the look she had brought at
his call; but he felt now the strange chill of her brightness. "My dear
man, what has happened to you?"

"Well, that I can bear it no longer. _That's_ simply what has happened.
Something has snapped, has broken in me, and here I am. It's _as_ I am
that you must have me."

He saw her try for a time to appear to consider it; but he saw her also
not consider it. Yet he saw her, felt her, further--he heard her, with
her clear voice--try to be intensely kind with him. "I don't see, you
know, what has changed." She had a large strange smile. "We've been
going on together so well, and you suddenly desert me?"

It made him helplessly gaze. "You call it so 'well'?