He waited a long time. Then he asked her,-- "Have you ever known pain?" "Yes. I thought my mind was going." "But not pain of your body?" "Oh, no, not that." "The pain of the body is something to be afraid of. If we have it once, we cringe when we see it coming. But your singing--can I tell you what it wakens in me? No, for I don't know. Pain, the premonition of pain. Something I must escape." "Yet I was to sit by and sing to you while you were at work." "Yes, but that would be when we were quite content." It was the first wistful hint that things were lacking to him. He could not be contented; yet, against reason, his manner told a different, braver story. "You said," she began, "if armies came between us, they could not break the little thread. Suppose I go away?" "That wouldn't break it. Don't you suppose my thought can run to London or Rome? It isn't worth much if it can't." "Suppose I"--she stopped, appalled at herself for the thought, but jealously anxious to be told. "Suppose you marry the prince? That would be dreadful, because you don't love him. But it wouldn't break the thread. It would muffle it, I guess. We couldn't think back and forth on it. But it would be there." Immediately it seemed to her that she had something even more precious than she had guessed, something not to be imperiled. "I must not do anything to muffle it," she said. "Either with the prince--or any one." "The only thing I'm afraid of," he went on, "is that you won't stand up to your father. Why, you must, playmate, if you feel like that about him." She answered bitterly. "I am afraid, I suppose." Osmond spoke out sharply in the tone of a man who dismisses dreams. "Don't be afraid. Stand up and fight." Her pathetic voice recalled him. "But think! You said you were afraid of pain. You ought to know what fear is." He answered slowly, and in what seemed almost exaltation,-- "I am afraid of pain; but when the time comes I shan't wait for it. I shall go out to meet it." "What do you mean?" He seemed another creature, all steel and fire, not an impersonal thing speaking out of the dark. "Don't you know we all want something big, something bigger than we are to fight and conquer? Before we leave this earth, we want to make our mark on it, that shall not be washed away." "Are you ambitious?" "I don't know. I do know I mean to live--when I am free." Alarm was quickening in her. He seemed to be withdrawing into dark halls where she could not see to follow. He was building the house of his heart, yet there were apparently other edifices, fortresses or dungeons, it might be, where he walked alone. "When you are free?" she insisted. "When Pete has got his gait and I needn't back him. When grannie is dead--dear grannie! Then I shall do my one free act." She was so shaken that it seemed as if the night itself terrified her, not he alone. "Not"--she paused, and then whispered it. "Do you mean--to kill yourself?" He laughed.