He paused, a change upon his face, his eyes lighting with a sudden glow. She saw and understood; and her breast rose with sudden keen emotion.
“You mean,” whispered she, “in our own home?”
“Where better?”
She paled as, kneeling beside her, he flung a powerful arm about her, and pulled her to him, breathing heavily.
“Don't! Don't!” she forbade. “No, no, Allan--there's so much work to do--you mustn't!”
To her a vision rose of dream-children--strong sons and daughters yet unborn. Their eyes seemed smiling, their fingers closing on hers. Cloudlike, yet very real, they beckoned her, and in her stirred the call of motherhood--of life to be. Her heart-strings echoed to that harmony; it seemed already as though a tiny head, downy--soft, was nestling in her bosom, while eager lips quested, quested.
“No, Allan! No!”
Almost fiercely she flung him back and stood up.
“Come!” said she. “Let us start at once. Nothing remains for us to do here. Let us go--home!”
An hour later the Pauillac spiralled far aloft, above the edge of the Abyss, then swept into its eastward tangent, and in swift, droning flight rushed toward the longed-for place of dreams, of rest, of love.