"Ronnie"--her eyes, wet with tears, sought his,--"have you counted the cost?"
"Yes." He released her; and she saw, as he rose up, that he was still resolute. "I've counted the cost. And it'll be heavy--heavier than anything we've had to bear yet. But it'll be worth while, Alie. Anything's worth while--if only I can win you your freedom."
"But your career----"
"My career doesn't matter any more. I've had success. I know how little it's worth. Nothing matters to me now except your happiness."
"My happiness?" Wistfully she looked down at her pale hands.
"Yes, your happiness. Oh, my dear, don't think I haven't realized, all these months, that you'll never be happy--really and truly happy--while you belong, legally, to that man."
"Ronnie"--she was trying, trying to tell him--"I have been happy. Always. It isn't that----"
"Yes, it is." He was afraid lest, pleading again, she should weaken his decision. "It's only that. Once you're my wife, you'll forget all the unhappy times."
"Shall I?" she thought. "Will that little ceremony make me forget that once, once I was Hector's?"
"That's why I want you to make up your mind," went on Ronnie. "Now. To-night. That's why I didn't want you to listen to Sir Peter. Alie, it isn't for my revenge I'm asking you to let me do this. It's for your own sake. If you were a different sort of woman, a rotten woman, perhaps it wouldn't matter so much--our not being married. But you--you can't go on forever like this. Just think, darling, just think what it would mean if we were to have children."