She stopped, looking down at her hand in his. He tightened his clasp.
His gaze on her darkened and deepened. "It's like sending me to get the
apples of Hesperides," he said, looking older than she, curiously and
suddenly older. "I want to say yes! It would be easy to say yes.
Darling, darling Marise, you can't want it more than I! But the very
intelligence that makes you want it, that makes me want it, shows me how
mortally hard it would be! Think! To be loyal to what is deepest and
most living in yourself . . . that's an undertaking for a life-time's
effort, with all the ups and downs and growths of life. And then to try
to know what is deepest and most living in another . . . and to try . . .
Marise! I will try. I will try with all my might. Can anybody do more
than try with all his might?"

Their gaze into each other's eyes went far beyond the faltering words
they spoke. She asked him in a low voice, "Couldn't you do more for me
than for yourself? One never knows, but . . . what else is love for, but
to give greater strength than we have?"

There was a moment's silence, in which their very spirits met flame-like
in the void, challenging, hoping, fearing. The man's face set. His
burning look of power enveloped her like the reflection of the sun. "I
swear you shall have it!" he said desperately, his voice shaking.

She looked up at him with a passionate gratitude. "I'll never forget
that as long as I live!" she cried out to him.

The tears stood in his eyes as in hers.

For the fraction of an instant, they had felt each other there, as never