“Joan, wife, never speak so to me.”
“It is the truth.”
“A splendid truth to me. Would I return to my vile servitude and lose the glory of you out of my heart?”
She sighed deeply, the sigh of a woman well beloved, and looked up at him from amid her hair.
“I am utterly happy,” she said, “for we are together.”
“And that is heaven.”
“For me.”
She laid her fingers upon his closed lids and kissed his lips.
“You must rest to-night,” she said, “for you are weary, and a tired brain thinks but feebly. Come, I will gather your papers and put out the lamp. I am your wife, and I must care for you.”