"I can tell you now, for I shall never do it. It smells of madness to me, now I see what living demands of us. It was only,—well, my body hadn't done me much service in the ways I should have liked."
"Tell me, Osmond!"
"I meant to give it, living, to some scientist, to experiment on. To a doctor, if I could find one that would meet me as I wanted to be met, to work on,—with drugs, with germs,—the things they do to dogs, you know."
She forgot how he had held himself aloof from her, or that some grain of pride might well have met his coldness. She was kneeling beside him, her hands about his neck, her head upon his breast.
"No, Osmond, no," she sobbed. "It would kill me."
The man sat still. Then he spoke, and his voice was hard as iron.
"It will never happen, I tell you."
"To have you tortured," she was sobbing. "To have them hurt you—your hands, your dear hands—"
He lifted one of them, in a dazed way, and looked at it, all brown with work and yet a wonder in its virile power. Then a flame passed over him and burned up what kept him from her. His arms were about her and he bent his mouth to hers. For the first time since he could remember, he forgot what he had called his destiny. And after they had kissed, he said,—
"Now, sweetheart, now we can talk. It's better so, even if we say good-by to-morrow."