Leaving Ilingsworth with his two charges joyfully planning their future, Eliot and Leslie returned to the next room.
"We've got a long fight ahead, Leslie—a running fight, as Colonel Morehead calls it, but I'm ready. Come, we begin to-night—we cannot start too soon."
"You remind me of that night," Leslie whispered, "that night when you brought the ring." He seemed scarcely to hear her, the room was reeling about him. But the girl, knowing that she must do the wooing if she were to win him back at all, went over to him, and, laying an affectionate hand upon his shoulder as she looked up into his eyes, she said very tenderly now:
"Eliot, if we're going to fight, don't you think we'll fight better if we fight together? I wouldn't dare to ask you this if I didn't see the hunger in your eyes for me just as the hunger is in my heart for you. And Eliot," she went on, nestling closer all the while, "won't you marry me to-night—won't you say you will?"
This sudden rush of happiness was too much for Beekman, and he could hardly speak. For answer he drew his arm round her waist and pressed her close to him, their lips meeting in one long kiss, as they had that night so long ago, when she had promised herself to him.
A little while later, Beekman drew his shabby coat about him, but Leslie saw nothing but the man underneath it. His shoulders that had been drooping under the burden of adversity, when she entered the room, now squared themselves; his mouth was firm, and his eyes sparkled as side by side they passed out into the darkness.
"What do you want of me?" Wilkinson was saying as he glanced first at Flomerfelt and then at his wife. They had bearded him in his Den a little while before, broken in upon his reverie, and instinctively he felt that their presence there augured no good to him.
It was Flomerfelt who answered:
"Thirds, Wilkinson. One-third for me and one for Mrs. Wilkinson."
"By what right do you demand it?" asked Peter V., lolling back in his chair. "And you?" he added, looking at his wife.