At last he had finished the story. He had told it all; of sitting there afraid to look, of looking and seeing and comprehending. Oh how he had comprehended! It was as if his mind too, his mind trained to grasp things, had turned against him, was stabbing him with its relentless clearness of vision. He told her of the merciless comprehension with which he saw the giving up of his work, the changing of his life, the giving up--the eternal giving up. He told her of how it had seemed to mean the making over of his soul. For his soul had always cried for conquest, for victory, for doing things. How would he turn it now to submission, to surrender, to relinquishment? Everything had been tumbling about him, he said, when that knock came at the door as the call from life, the intrusion of those everyday things which would not let him alone, even in an hour like that. And then of the boy with his paltry trouble which seemed great--the hurts--the final rising up of the instinct to help, despite it all. Then of sitting there alone and seeing a faint light in the distance, wondering if, in all new and different ways, he could not keep his place in the world. "Oh help me to do that, sweetheart! Help me to keep right! Don't let me lose out with those other things of life!" Her arms about his neck! He would never forget how she clung to him. There was a long silence when their souls reached one another as they had never done before. The quivering of her body, her breath upon his cheek--they told him all. But after that, the words did come to her; broken words struggling to tell of what her love would do to make it right; how she would be with him, so close, so unfailing, that the darkness would never find him alone. His arms about her tightened. Thank God--oh yes, a million times thank God for Ernestine! Then he felt her start; there came a sound as though she would say something, but choked it back. "Yes, dear?" he said gently. "Oh, Karl, I shouldn't ask it. It will hurt you. I shouldn't ask." "I would rather you did, dear. Ask anything. We are holding nothing from one another now." "I just happened to think--I wanted to know--oh Karl, it wasn't in your eye on my birthday, was it? It hadn't happened--wasn't happening--when we sat there by the fire, happier than we had ever been before?" His impulse was to hold that back. Why should he put that upon her, too, to hurt her as it had him, shake her faith as it had tried to shake his? But his moment of silence could not be redeemed. "Karl,"--her voice was strangely quiet--"it wasn't, was it?" He groaned, and she had her answer.