“Yes. John, how happy you must be! Always you’ll remember to-day. It’s your hour--one of the three or four. They go by so soon.” “And you? Are you not happy?... You are free, too.” He faltered as he spoke of this, of which she had never spoken. She shivered, as if a cold breeze had struck her. “Yes.... I understand.... I, too, am free. I know.” She turned to him eyes full of light. “Oh, Margaret,” he cried, his arms outstretched, “don’t look towards the future. To-day’s enough, Margaret. What is it you are afraid of?” She said, trembling under his touch, close to him so that her dress brushed lightly against his coat, “What is it we’re both afraid of? We are both afraid.” For answer, in his primitive wisdom, he swept her to him, overwhelming her thought. Lip to lip they clung, she imprisoned, silenced, caught up from fear. His arms about her in fierce pressure were a whole armour against doubt--more than armour, a charm, for the arrows themselves were diverted and flew wide of her, forgotten. Flames ran down her as his mouth burned against her throat, and her lips, opened now, were full of the sharp sea-wind. She fell from him a little, still held. “That once,” she said, with caught breath, “that instant lives. That stands. Nothing can touch it or steal it.... Don’t let me go--not yet, my darling--don’t let me go!” He drew her close again, but more gently. And she said: “It’s our victory.” “Nothing reverses it.” “Tell me----” He told her his love again and again, her arm drawing him down so that the fresh scent of her hair was over him. “Nothing takes those words back”--his kiss fell on her--“or the touch.” “But here we begin,” he protested, wondering at the jealous terror that possessed her. “We shall go on from this for ever. Nothing is taken away. We build and build. In a few years, when I----” “Oh!” she cried, “in a few years--who knows? We don’t break free so easily as this, John. The net sweeps wider than we know. It yields--that’s its strength. And presently it draws us in again. So it will go on--till the breaking.... You see, even you and I go on strengthening it, making new meshes despite ourselves. If ever we are to stand together in the world, first you have to gain money and power. You have to fight. Then--it’s inevitable--we would have to teach our children to fight--equip them for ‘the battle of life!’ And they would look round to find themselves in _our_ net. “But it’s going to end. The world will change its motive when this motive of gain has made it suffer so terribly, so obviously, that it realizes the cause of its suffering. We have to suffer--we or our children. It’s near now. The whole system may smash--the good with the bad--perhaps that’s the only way; and we may slip back into the Dark Ages again. I don’t know....” “But now----” John said. “Now? Yes--that’s ours.... Oh, for God’s sake! touch me and hold me as if you would never, never let me go....”