o think
honestly. I don't desire to deny even to myself that I am now become
what I am--a stranger to myself."

He said, still with his forced smile; "What pretty and unknown
stranger have you so suddenly discovered in yourself, Athalie?"

She looked up at him, unsmiling: "A stranger to celibacy.... Why do
you not take me, Clive?"

"Do you understand what you are saying!"

"Yes. And now I can understand anything _you_ may say or do ... I
couldn't, yesterday." She turned her face away from him and folded her
hands over the newel-post. And, not looking at him, she said: "Since
we have been here alone together I have known a confidence and
security I never dreamed of. Nothing now matters, nothing causes
apprehension, nothing of fear remains--not even that ignorance of fear
which the world calls innocence.

"I am what I am; I am not afraid to be and live what I have become....
I am capable of love. Yesterday I was not. I have been fashioned to
love, I think.... But there is only one man who can make me
certain.... My trust and confidence are wholly his--as fearlessly as
though he had become this day my husband....

"And if he will stay, here under this roof which is not mine unless it
is his also--here in this house where, within the law or without it,
nevertheless everything is his--then he enters into possession of what
is his own. And I at last receive my birthright,--which is to serve
where I am served, love where love is mine--with gratitude, and
unafraid--"

Her voice trembled, broke; she covered her face with her hands; and
when he took her in his arms she leaned her forehead against his
breast:

--"Oh, Clive--I can't deny them!--How can I deny them?--The little
flower-like faces, pleading to me for life!--And their tender
arms--around my neck--there in the garden, Clive!--The winsome lips
on mine, warm and heavenly sweet; and the voices calling, calling from
the golden woodland, calling from meadow and upland, height and
hollow!--And sometimes like far echoes of wind-blown laughter they
call me--gay little voices, confident and sweet; and sometimes,
winning and shy, they whisper close to my cheek--mother!--mother--"

His arms fell from her and he stepped back, trembling.

She lifted her pale tear-stained face. And, save for the painted
Virgins of an ancient day he never before had seen such spiritual
passion in any face--features where nothing sensuous had ever left an
imprint; where the sensitive, tre