"Nor do I want to, Pat! But I must."
"You mustn't! You're to stay, and we'll fight it out together—be married, or any way that permits us to fight it through together."
"Pat! Do you think I'd consent to that?"
"Nick," she said. "Nick darling—It's worth it to me! I'm realizing it now; I thought it wasn't—but it is! I can't lose you, Nick—anything, even that other, is better than losing you."
"You're sweet, Pat! You know I'd trade my very soul for that, but—No. I can't do it! And don't Honey, torture me by suggesting it again."
"But I will, Nick!" She was speaking softly, earnestly. "You're worth anything to me! If he should kill me, you'd still be worth it!" She gazed tenderly at him. "I'd want to die anyway without you!"
"No more than I without you," he muttered brokenly. "But I won't do it, Pat! I won't do that to you!"
"I love you, Nick!" she said in a low voice. "I don't want to live without you. Do you understand me, dear? I don't want to live without you!"
He stared at her somberly. "I've thought of that too," he said. "Pat—if I only believed that we'd be together after, together anywhere, I'd say yes. If only I believed there were an afterwards!"
"Doesn't he prove that by his very existence?"