“Now, what is your answer?” he breathed after a time.  “Tell me your answer now, you much-loved woman—­tell it, beloved.”

She kissed his brow and his eyes; he felt her tears upon his cheeks.

“You know all that I have thought and felt,” she said; “you know—­for I have written—­what my life may be.  Do you ask me to let it go and to live here in this solitude with you?”

“Yes, by heaven,” he said, his eyes blazing, “I ask it.”

Some influence had gone out from them which seemed to create a palpitant atmosphere of delight in which they stood.  It was as if the spiritual essence of them, mingling, had formed the perfect fluid of the soul, in which it was a privilege to live and breathe and dream.

“I am so blessed in you,” whispered Karl, “so completed by you, that I cannot let you go, even though you go on to great usefulness and great goodness.  I tell you, your place is here in my home.  It is safe here.  I have seen you standing on a precipice, Kate, up there in the mountain.  I warned you of its danger; you told me of its glory.  But I repeat my warning now, for I see you venturing on to that precipice of loneliness and fame on which none but sad and lonely women stand.”

“Oh, I know what you say is true, Karl.  I mean to do my work with all the power there is in me, and I shall be rejoicing in that and in Life—­it’s in me to be glad merely that I’m living.  But deep within my heart I shall, as you say, be both lonely and sad.  If there’s any comfort in that for you—­”

“No, there’s no comfort at all for me in that, Kate.  Stay with me, stay with me!  Be my wife.  Why, it’s your destiny.”

Kate crossed the room as if she would move beyond that aura which vibrated about him and in which she could not stand without a too dangerous delight.  She was very pale, but she carried her head high still—­almost defiantly.

“I mean to be the mother to many, many children, Karl,” she said in a voice which thrilled with sorrow and pride and a strange joy.  “To thousands and thousands of children.  But for the Idea I represent and the work I mean to do they would be trampled in the dust of the world.  Can’t you see that I am called to this as men are called to honorable services for their country?  This is a woman’s form of patriotism.  It’s a higher one than the soldier’s, I think.  It’s come my way to be the banner-carrier, and I’m glad of it.  I take my chance and my honor just as you would take your chance and your honor.  But I could resign the glory, Karl, for your love, and count it worth while.”

“Kate—­”

“But the thing to which I am faithful is my opportunity for great service.  Come with me, Karl, my dear.  Think how we could work together in Washington—­think what such a brain and heart as yours would mean to a new cause.  We’d lose ourselves—­and find ourselves—­laboring for one of the kindest, lovingest ideas the hard old world has yet devised.  Will you come and help me, Karl, man?”