“I have been trying to reason things out,” said he at last, in a new, strange, shaken voice she never yet had heard. “I am trying now to reason out why I don’t get on up and ride on away. We’ve said good-by. I’ve reasoned that you couldn’t love me. Am I right or wrong?”
Anastasie Lockhart slowly raised her face, her serious, grave eyes looking straight into his.
“You were wrong!” said she. “You have used me like a man. I was a woman.”
He stepped toward her, in the open sunlight where any might have seen, caught her face between his two hands and looked into her eyes with his own new eyes.
“You don’t mean we could both begin again? You don’t mean you could forget what I have been? You don’t mean I could ever be good enough for you? You don’t mean you could ever learn to love me in spite of what I was, for sake of what I am going to try to be? Tell me—answer me now, for I don’t think I can endure this.”
His two hands had fallen on her shoulders, straightened her up, held her at arm’s length for just an instant. The innate bravery of the girl aided her to look straight into his eyes in turn.
“You know,” she said, smiling slowly. “You must know now.”
The tension of the fingers on her shoulders lessened. His voice came almost in a whisper.
“I do know! Why, there is a new world, after all! We are the very first. There is no past.”
“Dan!” said she, after a long time. “Dan!”