the fingers of the other
hand suddenly seeking hers. "Can't you understand, if you do care a
little, if you have just a little flame of love in your heart for me,
that many of these other things which keep us apart are like the
lime-light which flashes out to give artificial light in an honest
darkness? Don't you believe, at the bottom of your heart, that you can
be happier if you will climb with me to the place where we first met,
even where the clouds lean over my own hills? You thought me very narrow
then. Perhaps I am. But I think you are beginning to understand, dear,
that that life is only a type. We can wander about where you will. My
hills are only the emblems of the things that are dear to me. There are
many countries I want to visit. I don't want to cramp your life. You
can't really be afraid of that, because it is the most widening thing in
the world that I have to give you--my love, the love of my heart and my
soul!"

She felt the sudden snapping of every nerve in her body, the passing
away of all sense of will or resistance. She was conscious only of the
little movement toward him, the involuntary yielding of herself. She lay
back in his arms, and the kisses which closed her eyes and lips seemed
to be working some strange miracle.

She was in some great empty space, breathing wonderful things. She was
on the hilltops, and from the heights she looked down at herself as she
had been--a poor little white-faced puppet, strutting about an
overheated stage, in a fetid atmosphere of adulation, with a brain
artificially stimulated, and a heart growing cold with selfishness. She
pitied herself as she had been. Then she opened her eyes with a start of
joy.

"How wonderful it all is!" she murmured. "You brought me here to tell me
this?"

"And to hear something!" he insisted.

"I have tried not to, John," she confessed, amazed at the tremble of her
sweet, low voice. Her words seemed like the confession of a weeping
child. "I cannot help it. I do love you! I have tried not to so hard,
but now--now I shall not try any more!"

They drove quietly down the long hill and through the dripping streets.
Not another word passed between them till they drew up outside her door.
She felt a new timidity as he handed her out, an immense gratitude for
his firm tone and intuitive tact.

"No, I won't come in, thanks," he declared. "You have so little time to
rest and get ready for the theater."

"You will be there to-night?"