"Dearest, that I might forever give you all that you ever desired! All!" she cried out of the tenderest depth of a woman's heart,—the desire to give all, the best, to the man loved, the sacrificial triumph of woman, this offering of body and soul and life from the need to give, give, give!
"I have come for one thing," he said hoarsely; "for you!"
She drew herself back from his arms unconsciously and said:—
"You must understand…. Dearest, I love you as I never loved you before. Not even when you came to me and gave me life…. I long to give you all—for always. But, dearest, for us it—cannot be."
"I do not understand," Falkner protested. "You think I am not free,—but I have come to tell you—"
"No,—listen first! And you and I will be one in this as we always have been one since the beginning…. When we went away together those days, we climbed the heights—you gave me my soul—it was born in your arms. And I have lived since with that life. And it has grown, grown—I see so much farther now into the infinite that we reached out to then. And I see clearly what has been in the past—oh, so clearly!"
"But why should that divide us now?"
"Listen! … Now it is different. He, my husband, would be between us always, as he was not then. I took what I needed then—took it fiercely. I never thought of him. But now I see how all along from the beginning I withdrew my hand from him. Perhaps that was the reason he went so desperately to pieces at the end. I could not have made him a strong man. But, dearest, he died utterly alone, disgraced in his own heart—alone! That is awful to think of!"
"It was his nature," Falkner protested sternly.
"It was his nature to be weak and small and petty…. But don't you see that I deserted him—I took back my hand! And now I should let you take back yours…. Yes,—I have changed, dearest. I have come to understand that the weak must be the burden of the strong—always!"