wing it. It comes to them
afterwards--perhaps too late. But--it isn't too late with me,
Burke. I am your partner--your wife. And--I never meant
to--defraud you. All I have--is yours. I--am yours."

She stopped. Her head was bowed against his hand. That dreadful
sobbing threatened to overwhelm her again, but she fought it down.
She waited quivering for his answer.

But for many seconds Burke neither moved nor spoke. The grasp of
his hand was vicelike in its rigidity. She had no key whatever to
what was passing in his mind.

Not till she had mastered herself and was sitting in absolute
stillness, did he stir. Then, very quietly, with a decision that
brooked no resistance, he took her by the chin with his free hand
and turned her face up to his own. He looked deep into her eyes.
His own were no longer ablaze, but a fitful light came and went in
them like the flare of a torch in the desert wind.

"So," he said, and his voice was curiously unsteady also; it
vibrated as if he were not wholly sure of himself, "you have made
your choice--and counted the cost?"

"Yes," she said.

He looked with greater intentness into her eyes, searching without
mercy, as if he would force his way to her very soul. "And for
whose sake this--sacrifice?" he said.

She shrank a little; for there was something intolerable in his
words. Had she really counted the cost? Her eyelids fluttered
under that unsparing look, fluttered and sank. "You will
know--some day," she whispered.

"Ah! Some day!" he said.

Again his voice vibrated. It was as if some door that led to his
innermost being had opened suddenly, releasing a savage, primitive
force which till then he had held restrained.

And in that moment it came to her that the thing she valued most in
life had been rudely torn from her. She saw that new, most
precious gift of hers that had sprung to life in the wilderness and
which she had striven so desperately to shield from harm--that holy
thing which had become dearer to her than life itself--desecrated,
broken, and lying in the dust. And it was Burke who had flung it
there, Burke who now ruthlessly trampled it underfoot.

Her throat worked again painfully for a moment or two; and then
with a great effort of the will she stilled it. This thing was
beyond tears--a cataclysm wrecking the whole structure of
existence. Neither tears nor laughter could ever be hers again.
In silence she took the cup of bitterness, and dr