"Our love," he said, and looked her unflinchingly in the eye. "My love for you and your love for me. I demand the truth of you,--the deepest truth of your deepest soul,--because we are mates and can never escape each other as long as we live, though half the earth divides us and all our years. Wherever we go, our thoughts will turn toward each other. When we meet, though we have striven to hate each other, yet our hands will long to clasp. We may be at war, but we will love it better than peace with others. I tell you, I march to the tune of your piping; you keep step to my drum-beats. What is the use of theorizing? I speak of a fact." "I am going to turn my horse," she said. "Will you please stand aside?" He dropped her bridle. "Is that all you have to say?" She looked at him haughtily for a moment and whirled her horse. Then she drew the mare up. "Karl!" she called. No answer. "I say--Karl!" He came to her. "I am not angry. I know quite well what you mean. You were speaking of the fundamentals." "I was." "But how about me? Am I to have no importance save in my relation to you?" "You cannot have your greatest importance save in your relation to me." She looked at him long. Her eyes underwent a dozen changes. They taunted him, tempted him, comforted him, bade him hope, bade him fear. "We must ride home," she said at length. "And my question? I asked you if you were willing to stay here with me?" "The question," she said with a dry little smile, "is laid very respectfully on the knees of the gods." He turned from her and swung into his saddle. They pounded home in silence. The lines of "The Last Ride" were besetting her still. "Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate Proposed bliss here should sublimate My being; had I signed the bond-- Still one must lead some life beyond,-- Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul, Could I descry such? Try and test?" She gave him no chance to help her dismount, but leaping to the ground, turned the good mare's head stableward, and ran to her room. He did not see her till dinner-time. Honora was at the table, and occupied their care and thought. Afterward there was the ten-mile ride to the station, but Kate sat beside Honora. There was a full moon--and the world ached for lovers. But if any touched lips, Karl Wander and Kate Barrington knew nothing of it. At the station they shook hands. "Are you coming back?" asked Wander. "Will you bring Honora back home?" In the moonlight Kate turned a sudden smile on him. "Of course I'm coming back," she said. "I always put a period to my sentences." "Good!" he said. "But that's a very different matter from writing a 'Finis' to your book." "I shall conclude on an interrupted sentence," laughed Kate, "and I'll let some one else write 'Finis.'"