Their discussion of Tolstoy was interrupted by the swift flight of a motor boat that passed near, raising a small sea, and he seized the paddle to steady the canoe.  Then silence fell upon them.

“Sylvia” he said softly, and again, “Sylvia!” It seemed to him that the silence and the beauty of the night were his ally, communicating to her infinite longings hidden in his heart which he had no words to express.  “I love you, Sylvia; I love you.  I came up to-night to tell you that.”

“Oh, Dan, you mustn’t say it—­you must never say it!”

The canoe seemed to hang between water and stars, a motionless argosy in a sea of dreams.

“I wanted to tell you before you came away,” he went on, not heeding; “I have wanted to tell you for a long time.  I want you to marry me.  I want you to help me find the good things; I want you to help me to stand for them.  You came just when I needed you; you have already changed me, made a different man of me.  It was through you that I escaped from my old self that was weak and yielding, and I shall do better; yes, I shall prove to you that I am not so weak but that I can strive and achieve.  Every word you ever spoke to me is written on my heart.  I need you, Sylvia!”

“You’re wrong, you’re terribly wrong about all that; and it isn’t fair to let you say such things.  Please, Dan!  I hoped this would never come—­that we should go on as we have been, good friends, talking as we were a while ago of the fine things, the great things.  And it will have to be that way—­there can be nothing else.”

“But I will do my best, Sylvia!  I’m not the man you knew first; you helped me to see the light.  Without you I shall fall into the dark again.  I had to tell you, Sylvia.  It was inevitable that I should tell you; I wonder I kept it to myself so long.  Without you I should go adrift—­no bearings, no light anywhere.”

“You found yourself, Dan; that was the way of it.  I saw it and appreciated it—­it meant more to me than I can tell you.  I knew exactly how it was that you started as you did; it was part of your fate; but it made possible the finer thing.  It’s nothing in you or what you’ve done or may do.  But I have my own work to do.  I have cut a pattern for my own life, and I must try to follow it.  I think you understand about that—­I told you that night when we talked of our aims and hopes on the campus at Montgomery that I wanted to do something for the world.  And I must still go on trying to do that.  It’s a poor, tiny little gleam; but I must follow the gleam.”

“But there’s nothing in that that we can’t do together.  We can go on seeking it together,” he pleaded.

“I hope it may be so.  We must go on being the good friends we are now.  You and Aunt Sally are all I have—­the best I have.  I can’t let you spoil that,” she ended firmly, as though, after all, this were the one important thing.

There was nothing here, he reasoned, that might not be overcome.  The work that she had planned to do imposed no barrier.  Men and women were finding out the joy of striving together; she need give up nothing in joining her life to his.  He touched the hand that lay near and thrilled to the contact of her lingers.