There was a forlornness in the confession; almost a despair.
"Then tell me, please," said Lance, deliberately making room for her to lean over the balustrade beside him. His heart was beating fast at something in her face, and yet his uppermost thought was for her; for that forlornness, that despair. "I can forget it afterwards--if you want me to," he added consolingly.
She came to the place beside him, and looked down, hiding her face from all but the sliding river; and he, seeing her desire, looked into it also.
"It was about my starting on the raft," she began with a little sob. "I didn't tell you the truth about that. I--I didn't come to give the warning at first--I--I was coming to you."
"Yes!" he said quietly; but his hand found hers and held it. "You were coming to me, dear,--why?"
That touch seemed at once to help her, and to make her desperate.
"Because--oh, Lance! it was so foolish! I saw myself in the glass--all in white with the orange in my hand--and I thought of you--of what you said--of--of the World's Desire, and--and I felt I couldn't--so--so I was coming to you--first--when Am-ma--don't you see--"
There was a long pause. His hand, firm, strong, did not tighten, it simply held hers as they both looked down on the sliding river.
"Thanks!" he said after a time; and then there was another pause until he added, "It will be a bit rough, I'm afraid, on the Reverend David, but I don't see how we can help that--do you?"
And this time his clasp tightened. Erda said nothing; she felt there was nothing more to say, now that the truth had been told between them. So while the sinking sun flared red on the "Cradle of the Gods" another man and woman consoled themselves for the lost Paradise.