“When were you planning to go?” she repeated.

“Next week,” he said in an altered voice.  “I never thought you would take it this way.  I never thought—­it’s a great chance.”

“That’s what I once told you,” she said slowly, and turned away that he might not see her face.  “Don’t touch me!” she cried as he came nearer.  “Don’t!  I’ve been nervous all day, and lonely.”  She tried to control herself, but as his arms went around her, she began to sob like a hurt child.  “If you leave me, I shall die.  I can’t bear it.  I know it’s wicked of me.”  Her words reached him brokenly.  “It’s only because you’re all I have.  I’ve given up everything; and now——­”

He stood very still, staring into space, his hold on her never loosening.  She stumbled on, confessing what had lain hidden in her heart until this moment.  She told him things she had never thought she could betray to any one—­things she had never even dared formulate.  When she had done, he said in a strange, gentle voice: 

“I didn’t know you depended so on me.  But it’s all right; I won’t leave you, ever.  It’s all right.  There, dear, I understand.”

She struggled free from his hold, and dried her eyes with a sudden passionate gesture of scattering tears.

“You shall go,” she said fiercely.  “I hate myself for acting this way.  It was only because——­” She could get no further.

He did not attempt to touch her again.  They stood facing one another, measuring their love.

“I might go,” he said at last, as if to himself; “but in going I should spoil something very precious.  You deny it now, but you would remember your own sacrifice.  And then, of course, you would go back to your work.  I should want you to.  But it would never be the same again, never.”

“I won’t go back.”

He shook his head.

“If you didn’t, you would never forgive me.  Every day you spent here alone and idle would break one of those fragile bonds that hold us so closely.  If only you hadn’t given up South America!”

“I was wrong,” she said drearily.

At last he held out his arms.

“Myra,” he said, “you mean more than anything else to me.  This offer pleased me; I admit it.  But I can work on just as well here.  I have the Cromwell house, you know, and the Newburghs may build soon.  Don’t let’s think of it again.”

She held back a moment, afraid to yield; but there was no resisting her longing, and she ran to him with a little sigh, which he softly echoed as he took her and held her close.

They had vowed to live only for one another.  The theme of their love was sublime enough, but the instruments were fallible.  Human beings can rarely sustain a lofty note beyond the measure of a supreme moment.  Emotional as she was in her gratitude, Myra would have kept on sounding that note through the days and nights.  She would not allow Oliver to forget what he had given up for her sake.