He looked at her through the falling dusk, and his hand closed tense and vital upon her arm. "It's the truth anyway," he said. "I knew you hated the place, that you only came to it for my sake. And I—I made you come because I wanted you to love it."
"For your sake, Nap?" she said softly.
"Yes, and for another reason." He paused a moment; speech seemed suddenly an effort to him. Then: "Anne," he said, "you forgave me, I know, long ago; but I want you here—on this spot—to tell me that what happened here is to you as if it had never been. I want it blotted out of your mind for ever. I want your trust—your trust!"
It was like a hunger-cry rising from the man's very soul. At sound of it she turned impulsively.
"Nap, never speak of this again! My dearest, we need not have come here for that. Yet I am glad now that we came. It will be holy ground to me as long as I live. As long as I live," she repeated very earnestly, "I shall remember that it was here that the door of paradise was opened to us at last, and that God meant us to enter in."
She lifted her eyes to his with a look half-shy, half-confident. "You believe in God," she said.
He did not answer at once. He was looking out beyond her for the first time, and the restless fire had gone out of his eyes. They were still and deep as a mountain pool.
"Nap," she said in a whisper.
Instantly his look came back to her. He took her face between his hands with a tenderness so new that it moved her inexplicably to tears.
"I believe in the Power that casts out devils," he said very gravely.
"Luke taught me that much. I guess my wife will teach me the rest."