'This is glory to know,' he said, 'but do you think it makes the sacrifice more easy? Before it was only a chance I gave up—now it is your very self I must renounce.'
'Why?' Her voice trembled a little now.
'Because I must return to Russia. My place is there, and where I go—'
'I, too, will go,' she interrupted.
He caught her wrist.
'But if you go with me you go to almost certain death.
'Does that matter?' she said, and looked full in his eyes.
His fingers had closed on hers, and so they went out together into the bright English sunshine. Not more serenely, not more gladly, than they would hereafter go, hand in hand, into the black darkness and oblivion that waits to swallow those who dare to set themselves against the bitter tyranny of Russia.
To each of them that day had given the most perfect gift of life, and both were content to offer up that gift—life itself even—for the sake of the Liberty they loved—the Liberty who, though she may not crown their lives—will consecrate their graves.
THE END.