"No; no, indeed; we can go back and begin all over again, this time with a clean slate. I have been thinking these things over, trying, the last few days, to work them out by myself, and I believe I have learned more than one lesson in that time. Think how easily it can be done! We can slip around to that haven of the love-tossed, to the Little Church Around the Corner, and then we can hunt us out some little nook of our own in the big city, and there we can live our lives, and dream our dreams, and do our work, and be happy together! And how happy I shall be, working for you, dearest," he said, with the tremble of emotion in his voice.
"No, no; not back to New York!" she pleaded. "Couldn't we go to England, to Oxford—your own Oxford, and live there, alone, away from them all?"
"Yes, we could, if you thought best!"
The idea of it was new to him.
"John," she said, suddenly, and her voice seemed to lose its softness as she spoke. "John, I have something to tell you! I did not intend to tell you so soon, but now I must!"
She felt that in that exalted moment she must burn every bridge behind her; she must give herself no further chance of defeating herself.
"It is about your book—I could not take it; I have not taken it. I have given it back to you. It is being published now, but—but not in my name!"
Oh, if that could have been the whole truth, she thought, as the first thorn of her poor rose of abnegation pierced her. But it was the best that she could do, she told her aching heart pitifully. It was not too late; she could still make it the truth. In that moment of new birth she felt that she must tell him everything, from the first to the last. But as she framed the very words of her confession she saw that she must still wait a little—that was the most agonizing part of it. Yet nothing, she said to herself sternly, nothing, in the end, should be kept back from him. By her very frankness and openness of soul she would hold him and bind him the closer to her.
"It is being printed now—but not in my name!" she repeated, weakly, clinging to that one prospective act of redemption.
"I thought you would do it," he said, showing no surprise. "And I am glad of it, for your sake, dearest. I don't mind about the book; I do not want that. But it is You, the true You, that I want!" And as he said it his hand sought her hand once more.