“One thing looms high. Only one, Lyn.”
“Many things do, Con. They have been crowding thick around me all day. There are worse things than losing each other!”
“No!” Truedale denied, vehemently.
“Yes. We could lose ourselves! This thing that makes you fling aside what went before, this thing that makes me long—oh! how I long, Con—to come to you and forget, this thing—what is it? It is the holiest thing we know, and unless we guard it sacredly we shall hurt and kill it and then, by and by, Con, we shall look at each other with frightened eyes—over a dead, dead love.”
“Lynda, how—can you? How dare you say these things when you confess—Oh! my—wife!”
“Because”—and she seemed withdrawing from Truedale as he advanced—“because I have confessed! You and I, Con, have reached to-day, by different routes, the most important and vital problem. All my life I have been pushing doors open as I came along. Sometimes I have only peered in and hurried on; sometimes I have stayed and learned a lesson. It will always be so with me. I must know. I think you are willing not to know unless you are forced.”
Truedale winced and went back slowly to his chair.
“Con, dear, unless you wish it otherwise, I want, as far as possible, to begin from to-day and find out just how much we do mean to each other. Let us push open the doors ahead until we make sure we both want the same abiding place. Should you find a spot better, safer for you than this that we thought we knew, I will never hold you by a look or word, dear.”
“And you—Lyn?” Truedale’s voice shook.
“For myself I ask the same privilege.”