How Peter was hurting her! How he was pinching her with red-hot irons! It hurt so much that she was glad. Here, at last, she was beginning her sacrifice for Monte. So she made neither moan nor groan, nor covered her ears, but took her punishment like a man.
"Some one else must do all that," she said.
"Yes," he answered. "Or his life will be wasted. He needs to suffer. He needs to give up. This thing we call a tragedy may be the making of him."
"For some one else," she repeated.
Peter was fumbling about for her hand. Suddenly she straightened herself.
"It must be for some one else," he said hoarsely—"because I want you for myself. In time—you must be mine. With the experience of those two before us, we must n't make the same mistake ourselves. I—I was n't going to tell you this until I had my eyes back. But, heart o' mine, I 've held in so long. Here in the dark one gets so much alone. And being alone is what kills."
She was hiding her hand from him.
"I can't find your hand," he whispered, like a child lost in the dark.
Summoning all her strength, she placed her hand within his. "It is cold!" he cried.
Yet the day was warm. They were speeding through a sunlighted country of olive trees and flowers in bloom—a warm world and tender.