"Forgive me," he said. "It's wrong to ask you such questions."
"It's worse than wrong. It's unnecessary."
He passed his hands over his eyes, and sat down.
"I've gone through a lot to-day. I'm not quite myself, so you must forgive me if I say unnecessary things. God sent you to me this morning. Septimus was His messenger. If you hadn't appeared just now I think I should have gone into black madness."
"Tell me all about it," she said softly. "All that you care to tell. I am your nearest friend—I think."
"And dearest."
"And you are mine. You and Septimus. I've seen hundreds of people since I've been away, and some seem to have cared for me—but there's no one really in my life but you two."
Sypher thought: "And we both love you with all there is in us, and you don't know it." He also thought jealously: "Who are the people that have cared for you?"
He said: "No one?"
A smile parted her lips as she looked him frankly in the eyes and repeated the negative. He breathed a sigh of relief, for he had remembered Rattenden's prophecy of the big man whom she was seeking, of the love for the big man, the gorgeous tropical sunshine in which all the splendor in her could develop. She had not found him. From the depths of his man's egotism he uttered a prayer of thanksgiving.