He gave her the quick look she had loved to remember through the years. "Theresa, do you see what he has done? He's joined us with a seal we dare not break."
"Why should we want to break it?" she asked on a breath.
"Because we're frail and stupid, my beloved. Yes, you with your temper and your pride, and me with the evil in me like a weed. We've got to be more finely faithful than other folks. Do you think he had not seen that? He had a poet's soul. Common kindnesses and loyalty will not be memorial enough for him. We can give him nothing but the highest. Ah! you mustn't think I wouldn't want to give it to you, that you don't shine for me until I feel it's sacrilege to touch you, but though we may live all our lives in more worship of each other than we dream of yet, there'll be other things, Theresa. Hard work, and trouble, and weariness, and poverty, and they may breed anger, and hard words, and that unfaithfulness of the mind that's worse than any fleshly one. All these might come, even to lovers such as you and me; but what would he think? If we feel him in the wind and among the hills where you and I are to live and work together, we'll live and work so that he need never suffer for us. That's what he's done for us, Theresa. He might have joined us in some other way, but not so surely, not so fast."
Her eyes were filled with awe and wonder for the man who had done this thing and the one who understood. "I had a dream of waiting for you among the hills," she said, "and now it has come true; but do you remember that dream of Janet's—the one about the birds, the little ones that grew to eagles? We've got to make that one come true as well. Oh, Alexander, shall we ever do it?"
He shook his head as he bent to kiss her. "No, most dear," he said.
She gave that laugh which was of happiness. Their glances met and rested in each other, and there was no shadow lying between their souls, and so they entered again into the house where Life had clothed itself in the quiet garments of Death.