"You're excited," said Laurie, soothingly. He took her hands and held them. "I've put you through a bad half-hour. You understand, of course, that I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been made to realize that your whole thought, throughout this experiment, has been of the play, and only of the play."
She drew back and looked at him.
"What do you mean?"
"Why—" It was hard to explain, but he blundered on. "I mean that, for a little time, I was fool enough to hope that—that—some day you might care for me. For of course you know, you've known all along—that I—love you. But when I got the truth—"
"You haven't got the truth." She was interrupting him, but her face had flashed into flame. "You haven't had it for one second; but you're going to get it now. I'm not going to let our lives be wrecked by any silly misunderstanding."
She stopped, then rushed on.
"Oh, Laurie, can't you see? The only truth that counts between us is that I—I—adore you! I have from the very first—almost from the day you came here—Oh, it's dreadful of you to make me say all this!"
She was sobbing now, in his arms. For a long moment he held her very close and in utter silence. Like Bangs, but in a different way, he was feeling the effects of a tremendous reaction.
"You'll make a man of me, Doris," he said brokenly, when he could speak. "I'm not afraid to let you risk the effort. And when I come back from France—"
"When you come back from France you'll come back to your wife," she told him steadily. "If you're going, I'll marry you before you go. Then I'll wait and pray, and pray and wait, till you come again. And you will come back to me," she whispered. "Something makes me sure of it."