"What shall we do now?"
She stood before him absorbed in the love which at last had found expression. What else the world might hold for her was not.
So standing, delicately flushed, but with eyes which neither faltered nor fell beneath his, the daughter of Louise de Courcy awaited Mark's answer.
"You are my brother's wife," he said slowly.
Betty shrugged her shoulders. The gesture, almost piteous in its shrinking protest, moved Mark more than any words she had spoken.
"If—if I asked you, you would come away with me?"
She nodded, meeting his passionate glance, facing, as he did, the issues involved. Her hands moved towards him—timidly, but with unmistakable invitation.
"Betty," he cried, "Betty!"
"Ah! you want me. You do want me—you do, you do!"
"Want you?" his voice broke. Instantly she had seized his hands, drawing him towards her. He held her firmly—at arm's length. In that supreme moment he was perhaps stronger than he had been ever before, inasmuch as the faith which once had fortified him was his no longer, and yet without it, believing in nothing, holding in derision God's law and man's, he resisted her, because he was counting the cost to her. Then, reading his thought, she inclined her head, whispering, "If there is a God, and if he bade me choose between life here with you and life hereafter without you, not being allowed to have both—do you know what I should say?"