A thrill of joy ran through her.  Her lips quivered.  She wanted to cry out, to put her arms around his neck, to tell him everything in her heart.  Then came a quick, sharp pain that stifled every other thought.  For the first time the real bitterness of the situation confronted her.  This phase of it she had not counted upon.

She shrank back a little.  “Don’t ask me that!” she moaned in a tone almost of pain.  “I can stand anything now but that.  Not now—­not now!”

Her hand was still under his, her fingers lying limp, all the pathos of her suffering in her face:  determination to do her duty, horror over the situation, and above them all her overwhelming love for him.

He put his arm about her shoulders and drew her to him.

“You love me, Jane, don’t you?”

“Yes, more than all else in the world,” she answered simply.  “Too well”—­and her voice broke —­“to have you give up your career for me or mine.”

“Then why should we live apart?  I am willing to do as much for Lucy as you would.  Let me share the care and responsibility.  You needn’t, perhaps, be gone more than a year, and then we will all come back together, and I take up my work again.  I need you, my beloved.  Nothing that I do seems of any use without you.  You are my great, strong light, and have always been since the first day I loved you.  Let me help bear these burdens.  You have carried them so long alone.”

His face lay against hers now, her hand still clasped tight in his.  For an instant she did not answer or move; then she straightened a little and lifted her cheek from his.

“John,” she said—­it was the first time in all her life she had called him thus—­“you wouldn’t love me if I should consent.  You have work to do here and I now have work to do on the other side.  We cannot work together; we must work apart.  Your heart is speaking, and I love you for it, but we must not think of it now.  It may come right some time—­ God only knows!  My duty is plain—­I must go with Lucy.  Neither you nor my dead father would love me if I did differently.”

“I only know that I love you and that you love me and nothing else should count,” he pleaded impatiently.  “Nothing else shall count.  There is nothing you could do would make me love you less.  You are practical and wise about all your plans.  Why has this whim of Lucy’s taken hold of you as it has?  And it is only a whim; Lucy will want something else in six months.  Oh, I cannot—­cannot let you go.  I’m so desolate without you—­my whole life is yours—­everything I do is for you.  O Jane, my beloved, don’t shut me out of your life!  I will not let you go without me!” His voice vibrated with a certain indignation, as if he had been unjustly treated.  She raised one hand and laid it on his forehead, smoothing his brow as a mother would that of a child.  The other still lay in his.

“Don’t, John,” she moaned, in a half-piteous tone.  “Don’t!  Don’t talk so!  I can only bear comforting words to-day.  I am too wretched—­too utterly broken and miserable.  Please! please, John!”