"Was that all?" MacLeod was asking her. "Were there other scenes?" Immediately she wished to tell him everything. Yet this was difficult. She hesitated. "I am"--she flushed redly--"I am not engaged to Peter. He doesn't care about me." "My dear lady! He would say you do not care for him." Then Electra saw her good fortune. She was enchanted with the freedom which had fallen upon her in time for her to accept a more desirable bondage. She lifted her head and looked at him in a proud happiness. "No," she said, "I do not care for him. I never did. I see it now. I am free." "Are you glad to be free?" MacLeod had a way of asking women persuasive questions. Though they were interrogative, they had the force of suggestion, of the clinching protest he might make in answer, when confession came. And they only noted, long after, that he never did answer. Electra did not know that form of communion, and it struck her as something holy. She looked him in the eyes, with a clear and beautiful gaze. "Yes," she said, "I am very glad. Now I am free to devote myself to the most wonderful things, to worship them if I like." There was passionate sincerity in her tone. It would have made a smaller thing of her vow if she could have said she was free to worship him. "I am going to tell you something. You must not repeat it." "I never will." "I am going back to France." "You have been summoned!" He smiled at her and shook his head slightly, as if the manner of it were the only thing he could deny. She followed with another question, rather faintly, for his news left her shivering. "To France, you said?" "That is all I can say," he assured her. "It will be France first." "You will be in danger!" She did not put that as a question. It was an assertion out of her solemn acceptance of his task. But that he did not seem to hear. "When are you coming to France?" he asked her. Electra had now no more doubt of the unspoken pact between them than if it had been sealed by all the most blessed vows. It would have cheapened it rather if he had delegated her to the classified courts of sympathy. Instead, it left them a universe to breathe in. It pointed to undiscovered cities beyond the marge of time. It made her his in a way transcending mutual promises. This same full belief rose passionately to assert itself, and perhaps to soothe that small sharp ache in her heart, the kind that rises in woman when man, though he takes the cup, yet offers none in turn. "Immediately," she answered, without question. "Or, when you tell me to come." "Will you write to me there?" He scribbled a street and number on a blank card and gave it to her. "I shall not get word from you for a month, at least. Perhaps not until the late autumn. But I shall get it. And if I don't answer, you will know I shall answer by coming--when I can."