"Magdalen," he said almost inarticulately, "you have never repulsed me. Don't repulse me now, for I am very miserable. Don't pour your love into the sand any more. Give it me instead. I am dying of thirst. Give me to drink. You can live without me, but I can't live without you. I have tried--I have tried everything. I am not thinking of you, only of myself. I am only asking for myself, only impelled towards you by my own needs. Does not that prove to you that I am at last speaking the truth? Does not that force you to believe me when I tell you that I want you more than anything in the world. I have wanted you all my life without knowing it. I don't want to make amends to you for the past. I want you yourself, for myself, as my wife. I swear to God if you won't marry me I will marry no one. You are the only woman I can speak to, the only one who does not fail, who holds on through thick and thin, the only one who has ever really wanted me. I daresay I shan't make you happy. I daresay I shall break your heart. God help me, I daresay I shall put my convenience before your happiness, my selfish whims before your health. I have always put myself first. But risk it. Risk it, Magdalen. Take me back. Love me. For God's sake marry me." Each looked into the other's bared soul. Something in his desperate face which she had always sought for, which had always been missing from it--she found. "I will," she said. They made no movement towards each other. They had reached a spiritual nearness, a passion of surrender each to each, which touch of hand or lip could only at that moment have served to lessen. "You are not taking me out of pity? You are sure you can still love me a little?" "More than in the early days," she said. "For you have not only come to me, Everard. You have come to yourself." CHAPTER XXIX Me, too, with mastering charm From husks of dead days freeing, The sun draws up to be warm And to bloom in this sweet hour. The stem of all my being Waited to bear this flower. --LAURENCE BINYON.