"God forbid!" "Or if you had only told me, so that I could have told him--" She seized Peter's arm. "You would n't have dared!" "I'd dare anything to save two people from such torment." "You--you don't think he will worry?" "I think he is worrying a great deal." "Only for the moment," she broke in. "But soon--in a week or two--he will be quite himself again. He has a great many things to do. He has tennis and--and golf." She checked herself abruptly. ("Damn golf!" Monte had said.) "There's too much of a man in him now to be satisfied with such things," said Peter. "It's a pity--it's a pity there are not two of you, Marjory." "Of me?" "He thinks a great deal of you. If he had met you before he met this other--" "What are you saying, Peter?" "That you're the sort of woman who could have called out in him an honest love." There, beside Peter who could not see, Marjory bent low and buried her face in her hands. "You 're the sort of woman," he went on, "who could have roused the man in him that has been waiting all this time for some one like you." How Peter was hurting her! How he was pinching her with red-hot irons! It hurt so much that she was glad. Here, at last, she was beginning her sacrifice for Monte. So she made neither moan nor groan, nor covered her ears, but took her punishment like a man. "Some one else must do all that," she said. "Yes," he answered. "Or his life will be wasted. He needs to suffer. He needs to give up. This thing we call a tragedy may be the making of him." "For some one else," she repeated. Peter was fumbling about for her hand. Suddenly she straightened herself. "It must be for some one else," he said hoarsely--"because I want you for myself. In time--you must be mine. With the experience of those two before us, we must n't make the same mistake ourselves. I--I was n't going to tell you this until I had my eyes back. But, heart o' mine, I 've held in so long. Here in the dark one gets so much alone. And being alone is what kills." She was hiding her hand from him. "I can't find your hand," he whispered, like a child lost in the dark. Summoning all her strength, she placed her hand within his. "It is cold!" he cried. Yet the day was warm. They were speeding through a sunlighted country of olive trees and flowers in bloom--a warm world and tender. He drew her fingers to his lips and kissed them passionately. She suffered it, closing her eyes against the pain. "I've wanted you so all these months!" he cried. "I should n't have let you go in the first place. I should n't have let you go." "No, Peter," she answered. "And now that I've found you again, you'll stay?" He was lifting his face to hers--straining to see her. To have answered any way but as he pleaded would have been to strike that upturned face. "I--I 'll try to stay," she faltered. "I 'll make you!" he breathed. "I 'll hold you tight, soul of mine. Would you--would you kiss my eyes?"