"Lover-like? No. Yet, Dode, I think sometimes Eve might have been such a
one as you,--the germ of all life. Think how you loathe death, inaction,
pain; the very stem you thrust into earth catches vitality from your
fingers, and grows, as for no one else."

She knew, through all, that, though his light words were spoken to
soothe her, they masked a strength of feeling that she dared not palter
with, a something that would die out of his nature when his faith in her
died, never to live again.

"Eve fell," she said.

"So would you, alone. You are falling now, morbid, irritable. Wait until
you come into the sunshine. Why, Theodora, you will not know yourself,
the broad, warm, unopened nature."

His voice faltered; he stooped nearer to her, drew her hand into his
own.

"There will be some June days in our lives, little one, for you and
me,"--his tone husky, broken,--"when this blood-work is off my hand,
when I can take you. My years have been hard, bare. You know, child. You
know how my body and brain have been worn out for others. I am free now.
When the war is over, I will conquer a new world for you and me."

She tried to draw away from him.

"I need no more. I am contented. For the future,--God has it, Douglas."