“My poor child,” he said tenderly.
“I did n’t know that you cared about me—in this way—until last night. I tried to make you tell me—Stephen darling, why didn’t you? I was bound to go to Everard—I had promised, and he wanted me—and what could I tell him? I could n’t say to him, dear, that I would go on for ever living on your dear charity, a burden upon you—yes, in a sense I must be one—rather than keep my promise and marry him, could I, dear? I could only refer him to you—and when you said I must go, it was miserable, for I hungered all the time to stay. And I knew you were sad, it was natural—but I thought you found you did not love me enough to want me as a wife and felt it your duty to give me up. Why did you give me up when you loved me so?”
“I will tell you all, some day, dear, not now,” said Joyce. “But one thing—I did not know either that you loved me—like this. When did you begin to love me, Yvonne?”
“I think I must have begun in the years and years ago—but I only knew it last night—knew it as I do now,” she added, with a tremor in her voice.
She closed her eyes, gave herself up for a flooded moment to the lingering sense of the first great kiss she had ever given. And before she opened them, the memory had melted into actuality as she felt his lips again meet hers.
“Thank God, I have got you, my own dear love,” she murmured. “It has been a hard battle for you—this morning. I went out as soon as I dared—to go to him. I seemed to be going to do an awful thing—to give him that pain for our sakes. He told me I had not treated him wickedly—but I felt as if I had been committing murder, until I saw your face at the door. I told him all—all that I knew about my own feelings and yours. I said that you did not know I loved you—that your noble-heartedness was making the sacrifice—that I would marry him and leave you and never see you again, and be a devoted wife to him, if he wished it, but that my love was given to you. And he looked all the time at me with an iron-grey face, and scarcely spoke a word. Tell me, Stephen dear, does it pain you to hear?”
“No,” said Joyce, softly. “Your heart has been bursting with it. It is best for us to share it, as we shall share all things, joy and pain, to the far end.”
“I shall feel lighter for telling you. It was so terrible to see him—oh, Stephen, if I had not loved you, I couldn’t have borne it—he seemed stricken. Oh, why is there all this pain in the world? And to think that I—Yvonne—should have had to inflict it—either on him, who has been good and kind to me, or on you, whom I love better than I thought I could love anything in the world! And when I had ended, he said, ‘He is young, and I am old; he has had all the sufferings and despair of life, and my lot has been cast in pleasant places; he has come out of the furnace with love and charity in his heart, and I have pampered my pride and uncharitableness. Go back to him—and I pray God to bless you both.’ He spoke as if each word was a knife driven into him—and his face—I shall never forget it—it seemed to grow old, and ashen, and hardened.”
She covered her face with her hands for a moment, and then, suddenly, the memory of the night flashing through her, she dashed them away with a woman’s fierceness and clasped his head.
“But your need was greater, a million times greater than his,” she cried in ringing tones, “and your sufferings greater, and your heart nobler, and I should have died if I had not come to you—you are my king, my lord, my God, my everything.”