"Oh, you're mad—you're mad!"
With a struggle she freed herself from his grasp and stood away from him.
"Listen," she said. "Listen to me and then you'll understand what you're asking. I'm not happy—that's true. But it's my own fault, not Roger's. I ought never to have given him my promise. There was someone else—"
"Mallory!" broke in Rooke.
"Yes—Peter. It's quite simple. We met too late. But I learned then what love means. Once I asked him—I begged him—to take me away with him. And he wouldn't. I'd have gone to the ends of the earth with him. I'd go to-morrow if he'd take me! But he won't. And he never will." She paused, panting a little. "And now," she went on, with a hard laugh, "I don't think you'll ask me again to go away with you!"
"Yes, I shall. Mallory may be able to live at such high altitudes that he can throw over his life's happiness—and yours, too—for a scruple. I can't—and I don't want to. I love you, and I'm selfish enough to be ready to take you any minute that you'll come."
Throwing one arm about her shoulders, he turned her face up to his.
"Don't you understand?" he went on hoarsely. "I'm flesh and blood man, and you're the woman I love."
The hazel eyes blazed with a curious light, like flame, and she shivered a little, fighting the man's personality—battling against that strange kinship of temperament by which he always drew her.
"I can wait," he said, quietly releasing her. "You can't go on long as you're living now; the tension's too high. And when you're through with it—come to me, Nan! I'd at least make you happier than Trenby ever will."