"Everything. . . . And I—ask it of you."
He looked at her with troubled eyes.
"I'm afraid you don't know what you are asking——"
"I do know! I ask—your soul of God!"
For a long while he stood there as though turned to stone. Then, as though rousing from a dream, he walked slowly to the window, looked long into the south. At last he turned.
She sat on the edge of the sofa, her face in her hands, deathly silent, waiting.
"Tell me," she whispered, not looking up as he bent over her.
"About that matter of a stray soul?" he said pleasantly. "It's all right—if you care to—bother with it. . . ."
Her hands dropped, and when she looked up he saw the tears standing in her grey eyes.
"Do you mean it?" she asked, trembling.