“Is this”—she moistened her dry lips—“because of Port Cecil?”
“Partly, I suppose. It was touch-and-go there after Lewin’s death.” (Did he ever shrink before a name? She could not have spoken so.) “But Melton Hanney pulled the Empire out of a war. He should get something for that!” He smiled grimly.
“You have heard from Capetown?”
“I have.” He spoke more grimly still. Into his hard eyes flashed the passing soreness of a spoiled ambition. And he had meant to do so much with that insignificant tool, Key Island!—to make it so much the very centre of warring destinies that no one in after years could speak of it without an historical significance. He knew, as even she could not understand, the result of the thing he had dared to do, and he saw his future, perhaps, as another man did, “behind him!” For one cannot stake Empires and not lose something, even though one win a private and personal gain. Something was left him out of the wreck on which to begin to build anew—a fresh incentive to rise in the fair woman before him, whom he had coveted to the height of tossing lives aside for her, and committing tacit murder. He stretched out his hands and took hers gently.
“Will you come into the wilderness with me?” he said, with a curious little smile. “Dare you be my wife and share my fortunes—now?”
For a second she half drew back, not at the thing he suggested, but the hurry it implied. “At once—so soon?” breathed her training.
“At once—so soon!” he echoed, not one line of concession in his face or voice. “That wherever I go I may take you with me. I am not offering you an easy position, or an establishment in life, I assure you! I am a man who wants his wife beside him, wherever it is possible. I shall very likely want you where most men would say it was not possible. If you are afraid for your children, it may mean parting from them, or if we can make a home where other men give up all hope of family ties, I shall ask you to risk it.”
“I am not afraid!” she said proudly, but rather breathlessly.
“Except for the weight of public opinion against a hurried marriage? I meant to spare you that. But things are worse with me than I hoped they might be, and the stroke fell more swiftly.” He set his teeth and thought of Halton. “I have not much to offer you!” he said, and his voice had suddenly hoarsened. “But I think you love me—I know I love you. There is trouble for us in the future, but I have still the fighting powers that have made me what I am. I can give you love, and strength to win you back the position that I have imperilled for you.” His voice sharpened still more with sudden fear, and his hands tightened on hers. Even she did not realise how great the dread of losing her had been, but it drove him almost to an appeal. “Leo, in common humanity you will not turn from me now?”
How much we mean by that word humanity! It contains all the virtues with which we do not credit God. Perhaps Leoline felt that a little more was being asked of her than the simply human side would have acceded, but the diviner spark burned up to meet the demand upon it. She looked into his compelling eyes, and in that moment of her love, perfected, she cast out fear for ever.