“He believes in us,” he repeated.  “And you, Josephine, you love me?”

He saw the tremulous forming of a word on her lips, but she did not speak.  A deeper glow came into her eyes.  Gently her fingers crept to his wrists, and she took down his hands from her face, and drew him to the seat at her side.

“Yes, Philip,” she said then, in a voice so low and calm that it roused a new sense of fear in him.  “There can be no sin in telling you that—­after last night.  For we understand each other now.  It has filled me with a strange happiness.  Do you remember what you said to me in the canoe?  It was this:  ’In spite of all that may happen, I will receive more than all else in the world could give me.  For I will have known you, and you will be my salvation.’  Those words have been ringing in my heart night and day.  They are there now.  And I understand them; I understand you.  Hasn’t some one said that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?  Yes, it is a thousand times better.  The love that is lost is often the love that is sweetest and purest, and leads you nearest Heaven.  Such is Jean’s love for his lost wife.  Such must be your love for me.  And when you are gone my life will still be filled with the happiness which no grief can destroy.  I did not know these things—­until last night.  I did not know what it meant to love as Jean must love.  I do now.  And it will be my salvation up in these big forests, just as you have said that it will be yours down in that other world to which you will go.”

He had listened to her like one stricken by a sudden grief.  He understood her, even before she had finished, and his voice came in a sudden broken cry of protest and of pain.

“Then you mean—­that after this—­you will still send me away?  After last night?  It is impossible!  You have told me, and it makes no difference, except to make me love you more.  Become my wife.  We can be married secretly, and no one will ever know.  My God, you cannot drive me away now, Josephine!  It is not justice.  If you love me—­it is a crime!”

In the fierceness of his appeal he did not notice how his words were driving the colour from her face.  Still she answered him calmly, in her voice a strange tenderness.  Strong in her faith in him, she put her hands to his shoulders, and looked into his eyes.

“Have you forgotten?” she asked gently.  “Have you forgotten all that you promised, and all that I told you?  There has been no change since then—­no change that frees me.  There can be no change.  I love you, Philip.  Is that not more than you expected?  If one can give one’s soul away, I give mine to you.  It is yours for all eternity.  Is it not enough?  Will you throw that away—­because —­my body—­is not free?”

Her voice broke in a dry sob; but she still looked into his eyes, waiting for him to answer—­for the soul of him to ring true.  And he knew what must be.  His hands lay clenched between them.  Jean seemed to rise up before him again at the grave-sides, and from his lips he forced the words: