"What do you want to say that only I can hear?" he asked after a while. "This," she said. "I want you to love me strongly and fiercely for ever and ever--and I'll be a great wife to you--and, if I fail--if I am ever wanton, as I have been to-day--for I have been wanton--and all that has happened has been my fault--if ever I play fast and loose with your love again--I want you to kill me. Promise!" She looked at him with glowing eyes. All the big man's heart melted into adoring pity. He took her face in both his hands as tenderly as he would have touched a prize rose bloom. "Thank God, you're still a child, dear," he said.