"I thought you cared nothing for such conventions!"
She began to cry again, silently.
"Valerie—darling—"
"No—you don't understand," she sobbed.
"Understand what, dearest—dearest—
"That I thought our love was its own protection—and mine."
He made no answer.
She knelt there silent for a little while, then put her hand up appealingly for his handkerchief.
"I have been very happy in loving you," she faltered; "I have promised you all there is of myself. And you have already had my best self. The rest—whatever it is—whatever happens to me—I have promised—so that there will be nothing of this girl called Valerie West which is not all yours—all, all—every thought, Louis, every pulse-beat—mind, soul, body…. But no future day had been set; I had thought of none as yet. Still—since I knew I was to be to you what I am to be, I have been very busy preparing for it—mind, soul, my little earthly possessions, my personal affairs in their small routine…. No bride in your world, busy with her trousseau, has been a happier dreamer than have I, Louis. You don't know how true I have tried to be to myself, and to the truth as I understand it—as true as I have been to you in thought and deed…. And, somehow, what threatened—a moment since—frightens me, humiliates me—"
She lifted her head and looked up at him with dimmed eyes: