"I didn't come to you to make the good times better, but to make the bad times good--to do away with the bad times. That's what you wanted me for; that's what I wanted to do." She rose and faced him. "So I'll always welcome trouble--because then I'm wanted, then I can do what I've come to do." "Don't talk about trouble, Sibylla. We're going to be very happy." "Yes, I think so," she said, looking at him with thoughtful eyes. "I think we shall be." "By God, I love you so!" he burst out suddenly, and then walked off to the window again. She spread out her hands in an instinctive gesture of deprecation, but her smile was happy. "That's how I can do what I want to do for you," she said. "That's how I can change your life, and--and find something to do with mine." He came slowly back towards her, speaking in a low restrained voice: "It's really no use waiting for the boat. She won't come." Sibylla stood very still; her eyes were fixed on his face. He met her gaze for a moment, then turned away, sat down by the table, and lit a cigarette--doing it just by habit, and because he was so restless, not because he wanted to smoke. She stood there in silence for two or three minutes. Once she shuddered just perceptibly. She was striving to yield, to do what he asked, to live up to her gospel of giving everything so that she might make happy him whom she had chosen to receive her gifts--might make him happy, and so fill, enrich, and ennoble his life and hers. She had not thought there would be a struggle; that had got left out in the visions--the visions which were full of the swish of the wind, the dance of the waves, and the sailing to worlds new and beautiful. What struggled? Old teachings, old habits, instincts ingrained. She was acting in obedience to ideas, not to feeling. And feeling alone has power to blot such things out of being. But for good and evil she was a fanatic--she owned her ideas as masters, and forced herself to bend to them as a slave. What they asked must be given--whatever the sacrifice, the struggle, the repulsion. That they might realise what her nature craved, they must be propitiated by what her nature did not love. On that condition alone would they deal with her. And now these ideas, with all their exacting relentless claims, had found embodiment in Walter Blake. Blake turned his head and looked at her. She came quickly to him and fell on her knees by him. His hand rested on the table, and she laid hers lightly on it. "Walter, it's hard!" "If you love me----" he murmured. She knew by now that love can be unmerciful. With a little sigh she raised his hand and kissed it. She was half reconciled to her surrender, because she hated it. Had anyone been there to interpose and forbid, her reluctant acceptance would have been turned into an ardent desire to complete her sacrifice.