She had not moved while he spoke--spoke with a passion, a vehemence, that was like a sudden rushing into flame of a forest fire. There was something lurid and terrible in such passion, such vehemence, from him. It shook him as the forest is shaken and was like the ruinous force of the flames. She sat, while he held her, looking at it, as he had told her, “straight.” She knew that she looked at everything. Her eyes went back to his eyes as she gave him her answer.
“Not for the sake of the year of ecstasy; in spite of it.”
“For what, then?” he asked, stammering suddenly.
Her eyes, with their look of dedication, held him fast.
“For the sake of life--the long life--together; the life without the glamour, when my faith may altogether infect you.”
“You believe, Eppie, that you are so much stronger than I?”
“It’s not that I’m strong; but life is stronger than anything; life is the only reality. I am on the winning side.”
“Hope! Of course I hope. You could never make me stop hoping--not even if you broke my heart. You may call it a mirage if you like--that’s only a word. I’ll fill your trance with my mirage, I’ll flood your whiteness with my color, and, God grant, you will feel life and know that you are at last awake. You are right--life _is_ endless contest, endless pain; it’s only at that price that we can have it; but you will know that it’s worth the price. I see it all, Gavan, and I accept. I accept not only the certainty of my own suffering, but the certainty of yours.”
Through the night they gazed at each other, his infinite sadness, her infinite valor. Their faces were like strange, beautiful dreams--dreams holding in their dimness such deep, such vivid significance. They more saw the significance--that sadness, that valor--than its embodiment in eyes and lips.
It was finally with a sense of realization so keen that it trembled on the border of oblivion, of the fainting from over-consciousness, that Gavan once more laid his head upon her breast. He, too, accepting, held her close,--held her and all that she signified, while, leaning above him, her cheek against his hair, she said in a voice that over its depth upon depth of steadiness trembled at last a little: “I see it all. Imagine what a faith it is that is willing to make the thing it loves most in the whole world suffer--suffer horribly--so that it may live.”