"Oh, Michael, Michael, what are you going to do?" she cried. "To degrade yourself?"

"Even so," he said calmly.

"To punish me?" she cried, "To prove me? To test me?"

"If you can go through with it I shall be happy and content," he answered.

"Are you then to be nothing in Iceland?" she said.

"And what of that?" he asked. "Think of what you have just been saying."

"Then I have come into your life to wreck it," she cried. "Yes, I, I! Michael," she added, more quietly, "I will go away. I would not bring shame and humiliation upon you for all that the world can give. I will leave you."

"That you never shall," said Michael Sunlocks. "We are man and wife now, and as man and wife we shall live together."

"I tell you I will not stay," she cried.

"And I tell you," he replied, "that I am your husband, and you shall give me a wife's obedience."