for his wife, that life
no longer seemed a possible thing for him upon any other terms--all that
feeble scaffolding of words was, to his despair, swept now clean away in
the very torrent of his passion. He could do nothing for a while but go
on holding her. At last, words burst from him.

"I won't let you go. Not alone. Wherever you go, I'll go with you."

She looked up, staring into his face and he saw an incredulous surmise
deepen into certainty. She had seen, heard in that cry of his, the
truth--that he understood what she meant to do. Then her face contorted
itself like a child's, ineffectually struggling to keep back tears, and
she broke down, weeping.

That broke the spell that had fallen upon him. He took her up, carried
her over to the big armchair and sat down with her in his arms.

His own terror, which had never more than momentarily receded since she
had first spoken to him from the doorway, was, he realized, gone;
replaced by an inexplicable thrilling confidence that he had won his
victory. He didn't speak a word.

The tempest was soon spent. It was a matter only of minutes before the
sobbing ceased. But for a long while after she was quiet, all muscles
relaxed, she lay just as he held her, a soft dead weight like a sleeping
child. He wondered, indeed, if she had not fallen asleep and finally
moved his head so that he could see her eyes. They were open, though, and
at that movement of his she stirred, sighed and sat erect.

"I think I would have dropped off in another minute," she said. Then she
put her hands upon his shoulders. "I won't do that. I promise, solemnly,
I won't do what--what we both thought I meant to do. I don't believe I
could now, anyway. Now that the nightmare is gone."

She smiled then and bent down and kissed him. "But I won't do the other
thing either, my dear. I'll find some other way. Really go to Omaha
perhaps. But I won't marry you. You see why, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," he said. "I can tell you exactly why. You don't want to take
away my freedom. You want me to be a sort of--what was that opera you
spoke about at Hickory Hill?--_Chemineau_. Doing nothing but what I
please. Wandering off wherever I like." He smiled. "Mary, dear, do you
realize that you're proposing to deal with me exactly as Graham Stannard
would have dealt with you? Trying to make an image of me?"

She started from his knees, retreated a pace or two and turned and
confronted him.

"That's not true," she pr