“Strassburg geese don’t search their consciences,” he smiled.  “They are too busy being fed to death.  If you had lost your soul I should help you find it—­thank God, you don’t need my guidance.”

“Yet your coming crystallized all the self-accusations that had begun to stir in me.  It made me feel my utter emptiness.”

“Which only means realizing—­that you might have become empty and have not.”  He came close and bent upon her the eyes whose honesty was so convincing and whose fealty was so clearly writ.  In a voice that lost a little of its steadiness he demanded tensely, “Do you hate me?”

Mary Burton stood motionless, almost rigid, but some heart-wave welled up until she felt physically weak yet spiritually stronger than she had ever felt.  Her two hands clutched tautly at his shoulders and her eyes gazed into his.  Slowly they widened until they had unmasked all their depths and shown what was in her heart.  Then as the man’s pulses leaped to the elation of what he read there, he heard her shaken whisper inviting him very softly, “Look at me—­and answer for yourself.  Do I hate you?”

With sudden self-recovery, as he sought to take her in his arms, she slipped aside and after a short space the same voice that had just now been tense rippled into whimsical laughter.  “No,” she commanded.  “It mustn’t become a habit.”  The laugh died and her words and pupils were grave once more.  “Why should I lie to you, dear?  It’s no use trying.  I’m absurdly mad about you—­but I’ve doubted my power of really loving so long that we must both be content to put it to the test of time.  It’s too new to trust.  I can’t tell how much of it is my own heart and how much is your hypnotism.”

“I have come a long way,” he said quietly.  “I have waited a long while.  I can wait longer, if that’s the edict, but not as he waits who fears the issue.  You are going to love me and marry me.”

“I hope so.  I pray so.”  Her answer was vibrantly eager.  “I have longed vainly for a day that should make my heart leap beyond control.  You brought the day—­and if, between us, we can keep it—­”

She broke off, and he took both her hands in both of his.

“You are going to marry me,” he repeated.  “Don’t make me wait too long, my sweetheart and comrade.  Life is all too short to waste when it can be happy.”

“Are we wasting it?” she demanded; then she smiled at him and added:  “Thank you, for introducing me to the wonderful originality of being natural.  On the whole I don’t think I hate you—­much.”

All that afternoon her eyes held a starry happiness and sometimes they twinkled with a mischievous ripple.

Once she demanded, “Suppose Hamilton were to go broke tomorrow.  Stony, flat, hopelessly broke.  Would you still want me?” And before he could answer she broke into a merry peal of laughter.  “Don’t trouble to answer that question,” she commanded.  “I already know—­and I’m fairly contented.”