"There will be no coming back, Cherry."
"Oh, I know that!"
"There can't ever be--there mustn't be--you've thought of that?" he said, uncertainly. In the curious, unreal light that flooded the world, he saw her turn, and caught the gleam of her surprised eyes.
"You mean children--a child?" she said, surprisedly. "Why not, Peter?" she added, tightening her fingers, "what could be more wonderful than that we should have a child? Can you imagine a happier environment for a child than that little sunshiny, woodsy beach cottage; can't you see the little figure--the two or three little figures!--scampering ahead of us through the country roads, or around the fire? Oh, I can," said Cherry, her extraordinary voice rich and sweet with longing, "I can! That would be motherhood, Peter, that wouldn't be like having a baby whose father one didn't--one COULDN'T love, marriage or no marriage!"
And as he watched, amazed at the change that love had brought to quiet, little inarticulate Cherry, she added, earnestly:
"I've been thinking how BITTER it was, Peter, to have the greatest thing in life come to us this way, but just lately--just this last hour it's come to me that it is right--it's best!--to have it so. We give all the world up, and we get only each other, and yet how little it seems to give, and how much to get! Why, every hour of it, every minute will hold more joy than we've ever known! I couldn't," she said, suddenly grave, "I couldn't take you from any one who loved you as I do; I couldn't hurt any one, to be happy. But Alix will forgive us; you'll see she will!"
"Alix--I know her!--will only be sorry for me," Cherry mused. "She'll only think me mad to disgrace the good name of Strickland; she'll think we're both crazy. Perhaps she'll plunge into the orphanage work, or perhaps she'll go on here, gardening, playing with Buck, raising ducks--she says herself that she has never known what love means--says it really meaning it, yet as if the whole subject was a joke--a weakness!"
"I believe she will forgive us, for she is the most generous woman in the world," Peter said, slowly. "Anyway--we can't stop now! We can't stop now! It will take me only a few days now to close everything up, to arrange matters so that she shall have plenty of money, and so that I can carry on the affairs of my mother's estate at long range. Spencer will attend to the rents, mail me quarterly checks; the whole thing is simple. And I will let you know--"
"It all seems so unreal!" Cherry said, with her heart beginning to hammer with excitement. "It doesn't seem as if it was you and me, Peter. I shall not need a trunk; I shall buy new things--it will be a new life---" "There is the steamer line that goes to Los Angeles," Peter mused. "Yes--I believe that is the solution," he added, with a brightening face. "Nobody you know goes there on it; it leaves daily at eleven, and gets into Los Angeles the following morning. From there---"
"I don't know ANYBODY there!" Cherry said, eagerly.