her sad eyes upon him.
"I'm Priscilla Glynn--a nurse! And you? Oh! you are Doctor Travers! Can
you not see my beautiful, happy, happy life is ended--must end? Margaret,
you, everything this joyous summer has made me--forget. Soon I am going
back--where there is no dancing!"
"And--cease to be yourself?"
"Yes. But I shall always remember. Not many have had the wonderful
glimpse I have had--not many."
"I--I will not let you go back! You belong in the light; in love and the
giving of love. You have given me a glimpse of myself--as I should be. I
have stayed in this magic place without a past and a future--for your
sake! I see it now. I love----"
"Oh! please, please stop. We are both mad, and when to-morrow comes and
the day after, and the day after that, we will both be sorry, and, oh! I
want all my life to--to--be glad because of this night."
"You shall--remember it--all your life as--your happiest night, if I can
make it so!"
His face was bent close to hers. For the first time Travers was
overpowered by the charm of woman, and all the pent passion and love of
his life broke bonds like a wild, primeval thing that education and
conventions had never touched.
"I--I want you! I want you without knowing any more than if you and I had
been born anew in this wonderful life. Look at me! You believe I can
offer you--the one perfect gift a man should offer a woman?"
She looked long and tenderly in his eyes. She was--going to leave him;
she could afford the truth. She was brave now.
"Yes," she whispered.
"And I know you to be--what I want. Isn't that enough? Can we not trust
each--for the rest?"
"Yes, if the white hills could shut us forever from the other things."
"Other things?"
"Yes, the things of to-morrow. Duty, the demands that lie--over the
Alps."
"I--renounce them all!"
"But they will not renounce us!"
Travers felt her slipping from him. A man whose youth has been denied, as
his had, is a puppet in Fate's hands when youth makes its claims.
"I--mean to have you! Do you hear me? I mean to have you."
And just then Margaret Moffatt drew near. Calmly, smilingly, she came
like one playing her part in a perfectly arranged drama.
"You are here? Ready for home? Wasn't it sublime and exactly as it should
be? We are so nice and friendly with our real selves."
There was no surprise; no suggestion of disapproval. The world in which
they were all playing could have only direct and simple pro
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