Part 18 (1/2)

For answer he looked at her with awed and suddenly enlightened eyes.

”Do you mean that?” he asked. ”You mustn't mean that.”

”Do you think I could care any more for life?” she asked. ”Would you?”

”No,” he answered simply.

”May I, then?”

His eyes could alone answer. He knew her love too well to affect that there would be any loss to her in the life she would thus be leaving.

”But Jenny?”

”If Jenny is there, she will understand now.”

I can conceive no happier, completer moment than that which followed for these two, no more una.s.sailable peace. If their lives were to be quite put out, they would be extinguished together; if they were to begin anew elsewhere, they would begin anew together; and meanwhile nothing that could happen could harm them, could rob them of the desire of their hearts. At the worst, they would attain their best; at the very least, they would win their most: they would die together.

To end together. It matters not how few or many years love and the beloved live their days side by side, even though their love be but the morning and the evening of one divine day, so that there be no bereaved and lonely to-morrow. The hour that takes one and not the other takes with it too all the acc.u.mulated happiness of all the years. That hour these two were to escape. Yet was there no need of haste. So long as they might, they would sit together in the sun of life. For a little longer they would say, ”How wonderful life is!”--for a little longer make sure of each other.

Your eyes, Isabel! Your hair, Isabel! Your dear mouth, Isabel!

A little longer.