He was still unappeased. "But you'll be very far away from me most of the time." She gleamed on him, her face all joyous for his incessant want of her. "Stupid! We shall see almost as much of each other as before. I'll be coming over to New York two or three times a week." Wherewith, and a promised daily telephone call, he must be content. Not at that meeting did he broach the subject nearest his heart. He felt that he must give Io time to adjust herself to the new-developed status of her husband, as of one already passed out of the world. A fortnight later he spoke out. He had gone down to The Retreat for the week-end and she had come up from Philadelphia to meet him, for dinner. He found her in a secluded alcove off the main dining-porch, alone. She rose and came to him, after that one swift, sweet, precautionary glance about her with which a woman in love assures herself of safety before she gives her lips; tender and passionate to the yearning need of her that sprang in his face. "Ban, I've been undergoing a solemn preachment." "From whom?" "Archie." "Is Densmore here?" "No; he came over to Philadelphia to deliver it." "About us?" She nodded. "Don't take it so gloomily. It was to be expected." He frowned. "It's on my mind all the time; the danger to you." "Would you end it?" she said softly. "Yes." Too confident to misconstrue his reply, she let her hand fall on his, waiting. "Io, how long will it be, with Eyre? Before--" "Oh; that!" The brilliance faded from her eager loveliness. "I don't know. Perhaps a year. He suffers abominably, poor fellow." "And after--after _that_, how long before you can marry me?" She twinkled at him mischievously. "So, after all these years, my lover makes me an offer of marriage. Why didn't you ask me at Manzanita?" "Good God! Would it possibly--" "No; no! I shouldn't have said it. I was teasing." "You know that there's never been a moment when the one thing worth living and fighting and striving for wasn't you." "And success?" she taunted, but with tenderness. "Another name for you. I wanted it only as the reflex of your wish for me." "Even when I'd left you?" "Even when you'd left me." "Poor Ban!" she breathed, and for a moment her fingers fluttered at his cheek. "Have I made it up to you?" He bent over the long, low chair in which she half reclined. "A thousand times! Every day that I see you; every day that I think of you; with the lightest touch of your hand; the sound of your voice; the turn of your face toward me. I'm jealous of it and fearful of it. Can you wonder that I live in a torment of dread lest something happen to bring it all to ruin?" She shook her head. "Nothing could. Unless--No. I won't say it. I want you to want to marry me, Ban. But--I wonder." As they talked, the little light of late afternoon had dwindled, until in their nook they could see each other only as vague forms. "Isn't there a table-lamp there?" she asked. "Turn it on."