She threw out her hands with a passionate gesture.  “Bertie!  What shall I do without you?  I can’t go on by myself.  I can’t—­I can’t!”

It was like the cry of a child, but in it there throbbed all the deep longing of her womanhood.  Ah! why had her eyes been opened?  Surely she had been happier blind!

He took the outflung hands and held them.  He looked into her eyes.  “But, cherie,” he said, “you have your husband.”

“I know—­I know!” Piteously the words came from her.  “He is very good to me.  But, Bertie, he—­has never been—­first.  I know it now.  I didn’t know before, or I wouldn’t have married him.  I swear I would never have married him—­if I had known!”

“Cherie, hush!” Almost sternly he checked her, though his eyes were unfailingly kind.  “You must not say it, Christine.  Words always make a bad thing worse.  Think instead how great is his love for you.  Remember—­oh, remember that you are his wife!  The sin was mine that you could ever forget it.  But you have not forgotten it, mignonne! Tell me that you have not!  Tell me that when you think of me it will be as a friend who gives you no regrets, the friend of your childhood, little Christine—­the comrade with whom you played in the sunshine; no more than that—­no more than that!”

Very earnestly he besought her, holding her hands lightly clasped between his own, ready at her slightest movement to let them go.  But she made no effort to withdraw them.  She only bent her head and wept as though her heart were breaking.

“Cherie, cherie!” he said, and that was all; for he had no words wherewith to comfort her.  He had wrought the mischief, but the remedy did not lie with him.

His own lips quivered above her bowed head; he bit them desperately.

After a little she commanded herself sufficiently to speak through her tears.  “Bertie, you once said—­that there was no goodness without Love.  Then why—­why is Love—­wrong?”

“Love is not wrong, cherie.”  Instant and reassuring came his answer.  “Let us be true to Love, and we are true to God.  For Love is God, and in every heart He is to be found; sometimes in much, sometimes in very, very little, but He is always there.”

“I don’t understand,” said Chris.  “If that were so—­why mustn’t we love each other?  Why is it wrong?”

“It is not wrong.”  Again with absolute assurance Bertrand spoke.  “So long as it is pure, it is also holy.  There is no sin in Love.  We shall love each other always, dear, always.  With me it will be more—­and ever more.  Though I shall not be with you, though I shall not see your face or touch your hand, you will know that I am loving you still.  It will be as an Altar Flame that burns for ever.  But I will be faithful.  My love shall never hurt you again.  That is where I sinned.  I was selfish enough to show you the earthly part of my love—­the part that dies, just as our bodies die, setting our spirits free.  For see, cherie, it is not the material part that endures.  All things material must pass, but the spiritual lives on for ever.  That is why Love is immortal.  That is why Love can never die.”