“Gabriel, I honor you.”
“Honor me!”
“Have you not put your own heart under your feet?”
“And yours!”
Joy had kindled on her face. She was happy—nay, exultant in her rapture of self-negation.
“Have I not sworn to you,” she said, “that I would not have had it otherwise? This has been my great awakening. Can you not understand, dear, that it is even something to live for a memory? I am content to be brave, not only for our sake, but for hers.”
“The woman I married?”
“Your wife; she must never know of this; I have always remembered her honor. And I have held your heart, Gabriel; have I not?”
“Who else?”
“We can triumph over the world, even by our renunciation.”