"Now, this minute, you've got to decide. It isn't I who tell you so. It's fate. Will you go on alone from the place we're coming to, or—will you try the thin wall?"
CHAPTER XXIV
THE ANNIVERSARY
The girl felt as if some great flood were sweeping her off her feet. She clutched mechanically at anything to save herself. Knight was there. He stood between her and desolation; but if he had spoken then—if he had said he wanted her, and begged her to stay, she would have chosen desolation.
Instead, he was silent, his eyes not on her, but on the desert.
"You—swear you will let me live my own life?" she faltered.
"I swear I will let you live your own life."
He repeated her words, as he had repeated the words of the clergyman who had, according to the law of God, given "this woman to this man."
The train was stopping.