led, with an
ebbing strength of body and will she realized that in the wild moment of
his triumph she was a sharer. If he were to release her now she would
crumple down inertly at his feet. Almost fainting under the sweep of
emotion, her muscles grew inert, her struggles ended. The tide had taken
her.

Slowly, as if in obedience to a command from beyond her own initiative,
she reached up the arms that had failed to hold him off and clasped her
hands behind his head and when again their lips met hers were no longer
unresponsive. Slowly she said in a voice of complete surrender, "Take
me--my last gun is fired. I tried--but I lost--Now I can't even make
terms."

"You have won," he contradicted joyously. "You've conquered the
undertow. 'The idols are broken in the Temple of Baal.'"

She was still dependent upon the support of his arms: still too
storm-tossed and unnerved to stand alone and her words came faintly.

"I surrender. I am at your mercy.... There is in all the world nothing
you can ask that I can refuse you."

"You have chosen--finally?" he demanded and he spoke gravely, unwilling
that she should fail to understand. "There will be no turning back?"

"You have chosen--not I," she replied, her eyes looking up into his.
"But I accept ... your choice ... there will be no turning back."

"You are ready to repudiate, for all time this life ... Eben Tollman ...
the undertow? You will be big enough and strong enough to break these
shackles?"

"I am ready--" she said falteringly.

"And you will not feel that you have proven a traitor--to the memory of
your father?"

That was a hard question to ask, but it must be asked. He felt a shiver
run through her body and _he_ saw in her eyes a fleeting expression of
torture.

"I am ready," she repeated dully. Somehow he remembered with a shudder
hearing a newspaper acquaintance describe an execution. The poor wretch
who was the law's victim went to the chair echoing in a colorless
monotony words prompted into his ear by the priest at his side. Then he
heard her voice again.

"Are you through questioning me, Stuart? Because if you are ... I have
something to say."

"I am listening, dearest."

"You see you must understand. You have conquered. I have
surrendered--unconditionally. But it's not a victory to be very proud of
or a surrender to be proud of. Once I could have given you
everything--with a glory of pride--but not now." He had to bend his ear
to catch her wo