"I am intruding?" he suggested gravely, with a slight turn as if offering to withdraw.
"No."
The word faltering on the lips of Mary Whitaker was lost in an emphatic iteration by Whitaker.
"Sit down!" he insisted. "As if we'd let you escape, now, after you'd kept us here in suspense!"
He offered a chair, but Ember first advanced to take the hand held out to him by the woman on the chaise-longue.
"You are feeling—more composed?" he inquired.
Her gaze met his bravely. "I am—troubled, perhaps—but happy," she said.
"Then I am very glad," he said, smiling at the delicate colour that enhanced her exquisite beauty as she made the confession. "I had hoped as much." He looked from the one to the other. "You ... have made up your minds?"
The wife answered for both: "It is settled, dear friend: I can struggle no longer. I thought myself a strong woman; I have tried to believe myself a genius bound upon the wheel of an ill-starred destiny; but I find I am"—the glorious voice trembled slightly—"only a woman in love and no stronger than her love."
"I am very glad," Ember repeated, "for both your sakes. It's a happy consummation of my dearest wishes."