The time had come when for his own sake as well as for hers, she must wring the truth from him, make him break through the silence which had long been torturing them both.

Whatever might be the outcome, whether pain or happiness, they must share it.
"Why won't you marry me, Garth ?" The little question, almost voiceless in its intensity, clamoured loudly at his heart.
"Don't tempt me!" he cried out hoarsely.

"My God! I wonder if you know how you are tempting me ?" She came a little closer to him, laying her hand on his arm, while her great, sombre eyes silently entreated him.
As though the touch of her were more than he could bear, his hard-held passion crashed suddenly through the bars his will had set about it.
He caught her in his arms, lifting her sheer off her feet against his breast, whilst his lips crushed down upon her mouth and throat, burned against her white, closed lids, and the hard clasp of his arms about her was a physical pain--an exquisite agony that it was a fierce joy to suffer.
"Then--then you do love me ?" She leaned against him, breathless, her voice unsteady, her whole slender body shaken with an answering passion.
"Love you ?" The grip of his arms about her made response.

"Love you?
I love you with my soul and my body, here and through whatever comes Hereafter.

You are my earth and heaven--the whole meaning of things--" He broke off abruptly, and she felt his arms slacken their hold and slowly unclasp as though impelled to it by some invisible force.
"What was I saying ?" The heat of passion had gone out of his voice, leaving it suddenly flat and toneless.