"But, yes! But, yes! What else?" he answered eagerly. "To come to you, Marie-Louise!"
She faced him, pitifully white.
"Oh, Jean, Jean! Why did you do it?"—it was a bitter, hopeless cry. "What good could this hour bring to you, what could it give you when you go back there that you have not already got, while for me"—her voice broke—"it was so hard before—so hard before, and now—"
She did not understand! She did not understand! He caught her hands.
"It is not for an hour!"—his voice was ringing, vibrant, glad. "It is not for an hour, Marie-Louise, it is for—always—always! I am not going back. I have come for always—to be with you always now, Marie-Louise, as long as we shall live. Look up, Marie-Louise! Look up, and smile with those wondrous lips, and put your arms around my neck, and lay your head upon my shoulder, for there is none here to see or heed."
She did not move; and, as she stood there staring at him, the colour came into her face—and went again, leaving it as white and drawn as it had been before.
"You are not going back"—she scarcely breathed the words. Then, almost wildly: "Jean, what do you mean? Your life, your work, your—"
"Are yours, my Marie-Louise," he said quickly. "It was that I meant when I told you Jean Laparde was dead."
"Mine! You would do this—for me—for me—Jean?"—it was as though she were speaking to herself, so low her voice was, as she leaned slowly toward him. "For me?" she said again; and in a tender, wistful way took his face between her hands, and looked a long time into his eyes while her own grew dim. "You are very wonderful, and big, and brave, and strong, Jean," she whispered presently; and there was a little quickened pressure of her hands upon his cheeks, and then they fell away—and she shook her head. "But it can never be, Jean—it can never be. You must go back."
"Never be!" Jean echoed—but now there was a sudden fierce triumph in his voice. "It must be now, for there is no other way. I cannot go back! Have I not told you that Jean Laparde is dead? Listen, listen, Marie-Louise, my little one. Up there I have destroyed all traces of myself, and in a little while they will find the note I left, and believe that I have thrown myself overboard. Ah, Marie-Louise, when I saw you here to-night—see, you were standing down there with your arms stretched out! But how can I tell you—the joy, the grief, the misérable I had been? But it was only you then—you, Marie-Louise, my Marie-Louise again! And I must show you it was true that my life should be yours, that I knew at last all else against your love was nothing, that I had been as some sick soul wandering, deluded, in a world of phantom things—ah, I do not say it well, Marie-Louise, but you must read my heart, and out of that great love of yours forgive. And I must make you believe—my beacon! Do you remember that? My beacon! Ah, Marie-Louise, for a little while I lost it in the darkness and the storm, but now it is bright again, and it shall always burn for me. And so, see, I have come; and it is the long past back again, and the between is gone, and it is again as the night old Gaston died, and you and I, Marie-Louise, are alone together in all the world."