White and shaken, but with her eyes shining like stars, at last she broke away from him. She turned toward the house, but he caught her and held her back. "Say it," he pleaded. "Say you love me!" "I do," she whispered. "Oh, have pity, and let me go!" "And I," he answered, with his face illumined, "love you with all my heart and soul and strength and will--with every fibre of my being, for now and for ever. I am yours absolutely, while earth holds me, and even beyond that." [Sidenote: What Matters] Edith looked up quickly, half afraid. His eyes were glowing with strange, sweet fires. "Say it!" he commanded. "Tell me you are mine!" "I am," she breathed. "God knows I am, but no--I had forgotten for the moment!" She broke into wild sobbing, and he put his arm around her with infinite tenderness. "Hush," he said, as one might speak to a child. "What has been does not matter--nothing matters now but this. In all the ways of Heaven, you are mine--mine for always, by divine right!" "Yes," she said, simply, and lifted her tear-stained face to his. He kissed her again, not with passion, but with that same indescribable tenderness. Neither said a word. They went into the house together, he found her candle, lighted it, and gave it to her. She took it from him, smiling, though her hands trembled. Back in the shadow he watched her as she ascended, with a look of exaltation upon her face. Crimson petals were falling all around her, and he saw the stain of the rose upon her white gown, where he had crushed it against her heart. Neither slept, until the tide of the night began to turn. Swiftly, to her, through the throbbing, living darkness, came a question and a call. [Sidenote: Peace] "Mine?" Back surged the unmistakable answer: "Thine." Then, to both, came dreamless peace. XIV The Light before a Shrine [Sidenote: Madame Reproaches Herself] Edith did not appear at breakfast. Alden seemed preoccupied, ate but little, and Madame, pale after a sleepless night, ate nothing at all. Furtively she watched her son, longing to share his thoughts and warn him against the trouble that inevitably lay ahead. Woman-like, she blamed the woman, even including herself. She knew that what she had seen last night was not the evidence of a mere flirtation or passing fancy, and reproached herself bitterly because she had asked Edith to stay. And yet, what mother could hope to shield her son against temptation in its most intoxicating form? For his thirty years he had lived in the valley, practically without feminine society. Only his mother, and, of late, Rosemary. Then, star-like upon his desert, Edith had arisen, young, beautiful, unhappy, with all the arts and graces a highly specialised civilisation bestows upon its women. [Sidenote: Looking Back]