"About what?"
"I mean, if I can not be his wife, I can not in honor be any man's.
God pity me, but must I make it plainer?"
Here, he believed, was his last throw. "Have I not told you that nothing mattered, nothing at all save that I love you?"
"I can not argue more," wearily.
"He will tire of you again," desperately.
"I know it. But in my heart something speaks that he will need me; and when he does I shall go to him."
"God in heaven! to be loved like that!"
Scarcely realizing the violence of his action, he crushed her to his heart, roughly, and kissed her face, her eyes, her hair. She did not struggle. It was all over in a moment. Then he released her and turned away toward the dusty road. She was not angry. She understood. It was the farewell of the one man who had loved her in honor. Presently he seemed to dissolve into the shadows, and she knew that out of her life he had gone for ever.