Understand!  No; it seemed that he could never understand!  She did not love Thornton!  And then, as some fiery cordial, the words seemed to whip through his veins, quickening the beat of his heart into wild, tumultuous throbbing.  Yes, yes, he could understand—­it was true—­true—­she did not love Thornton.

“Helena!” he cried—­and stretched out his arms to her.  “I thought, oh, God, I thought that I had lost you—­Helena!”

But she did not move.

“What does it matter to you whether I love Thornton or not?” she said dully.  “Does it change anything where you and I are concerned—­does it change what I told you this afternoon—­that I would not go back to that.”

“To that!  Ah, no!”—­his voice rang dominant, vibrant, triumphant now.  “Helena, don’t you understand?  We are to begin life again—­in a new way, the true way, the only way.  Don’t you see—­I love you!”

Still she did not move—­but there was a great whiteness in her face, and in the whiteness a great light.

“You mean?”—­her lips scarcely seemed to form the words.

“Yes!” he cried.  “Yes; to make a home for you, to marry you if only you love me still, to live in God’s own sight and hold you as a sacred gift—­Helena!  Helena!”—­his arms went out to her again, and the yearning in his soul was in his voice—­to crush her to him, to hold her in his arms, and hold her there where none should take her from him, to shield and guard her through the years to come, to live with her a life that seemed to break now in a vista of gladness, of glory, as the day-dawn breaks with its golden rays of God-given promise—­the new life, perfect and pure and innocent—­because he loved her.  “Helena!  Speak to me.  Tell me that it is not too late—­tell me that you love me too.”

And then her eyes were raised to his, and they were wet—­but there was love-light and a wondrous happiness shining through the tears.

“Helena!” he murmured brokenly—­and swept her into his arms—­and kissed the eyelids, lowered now, the hair, the white brow, the lips—­kissed her, and held her there, her clinging arms about his neck, her face half hidden on his shoulder.

And so for a space they stood there—­and there were no words to say, only the song in their hearts in deathless melody—­but after a little time he held her from him, and lifted up her face that he might look his fill upon it.

“Helena,” he said, “I cannot understand it all yet—­it is as though it were born out of the sin and the darkness and the blackness of what is gone—­as though here at this Shrine that we created in mockery and crime it was meant that you and I should save each other for each other.  And yet this Shrine as we have made it is a thing of guilt, and it has brought us all, you and I, and Harry, and the Flopper to a new life.”

She lay still for a moment in his arms—­then her hand crept up and touched his forehead and smoothed back his hair.