It was very tenderly spoken.  His hand pressed her shoulder, and the pressure was reassuring, infinitely sustaining.

She bent over Guy.  He looked straight up at her, and though the mystery of Death was in his eyes they held no fear.  They even faintly smiled upon her.

“Good-bye, darling!” he said softly.  “Think of me sometimes—­when you’ve nothing better to do!”

She found and clasped his hand.  “Often!” she whispered.  “Very often!”

His fingers pressed hers weakly.  “I wish—­I’d made good,” he said.

She bent lower over him.  “Ah, never mind now!” she said.  “That is all over—­forgiven long ago.”

His eyes still sought hers with that strange intentness.  “I never loved—–­anyone but you, Sylvia,” he said.  “You’ll remember that.  It’s the only thing in all my life worth remembering.  Now go, darling!  Go and rest!  I’ve got—­to talk to Burke—­alone.”

She kissed him on the forehead, and then, a moment later, on the lips.  She knew as she went from him that she would never hear his voice again on earth.

* * * * *

She went to her own room and stood at the window gazing out upon that new green world that but yesterday had been a desert.  The thought of her dream came upon her, but the bitterness and the fears were all gone from her heart.  The thing she had dreaded so unspeakably had come and passed.  The struggle between the two men on that path which could hold but one was at an end.  The greater love had triumphed over the lesser, but even so the lesser had not perished.  Dimly she realized that Guy’s broken life had not been utterly cast away.  It seemed to her that already—­there at the Gate of Death—­he had risen again.  And she knew that her agonized prayer had found an answer at last.  Guy was safe.

It was a long time before Burke came to her.  When he did, it was to find her in a chair by the window with her head pillowed on the table, sunk in sleep.  But she awoke at his coming, looking at him swiftly with a question in her eyes which his as swiftly answered.  He came and knelt beside her, and gathered her into his arms.

She clung to him closely for a while in silence, finding peace and great comfort in his hold.  Then at length, haltingly she spoke.

“Burke,—­you—­forgave him?”

“Yes,” he said.

She lifted her face and kissed his neck.  “Burke, you understand—­I—­couldn’t forsake him—­then?”

“I understand,” he said, drawing her nearer.  “You couldn’t forsake anyone in trouble.”

“Oh, not just that,” she said.  “I loved him so.  I couldn’t help it.  I—­had to love him.”

He was silent for a few seconds, and the wonder stirred within her if perhaps even now he could misunderstand her.  And then he spoke, his voice very low, curiously uneven.  “I know.  I loved him, too.  That was—­the hell of it—­for me.”