"There is nothing great in me except my love for you," he said. "With your love I might make something of my life, even if I—though I give this work up. But if you send me away I can't say what I shall do, Jennifer. There is nothing in me which holds me straight. I don't want to be held straight."
"Not for my sake?"
"No. Not for your sake, without you. You don't know very much of a man's temper, Jennifer. And you don't know the work I'm on just now. They are sending me out after Grange's Andree. She is wanted, and I'm to go till I find her."
He spoke roughly, wanting to rouse her jealousy. But he felt the unworthiness of his thought when she looked up at him.
"Poor Andree," she said. "Poor, poor Andree. Oh, Dick; be good to her. She cares for you, and she is too—too ignorant to hide it."
"I know she cares. I taught her to," he said.
Jennifer put out her hand to him.
"Don't hurt us both that way, dear," she said. "Can't we say good-bye without hard words?"
"God knows," he said. "I don't see how we're going to say it at all. I don't see why we should say it." He gripped both her hands suddenly, bringing his face near. It was very white, and the forehead was wet.
"Jennifer," he said, "I need you. Don't turn me away. I need you. I don't know what I may do."
He was speaking with a premonition of what was to come upon him. She shivered, but her eyes were steady.
"It's something beyond me, Dick," she said. "I know I must send you away. I know. You must find your own salvation, and fight your fight alone."
"Then you don't love me as I love you," he said huskily. "You are not willing to give up even a private scruple for me."
He did not say what he had been willing to give up for her. But she knew, though even then she did not know all.
"I would give up my life for you," she said. "But the other thing is not mine to give. It belongs to God."
She said it quite simply, as though she believed it. Dick
