"You must take me home," she said at last. "The folks will be uneasy."
He was compelled to take her to the cottage with the battle still
raging. He went back early the next morning, but already she had
wandered out over the island. Instinctively Henderson felt that the
shore would attract her. There was something in the tumult of rough
little Huron's waves that called to him. It was there he found her,
crouching so close the water the foam was dampening her skirts.
"May I stay?" he asked.
"I have been hoping you would come," she answered. "It's bad enough when
you are here, but it is a little easier than bearing it alone."
"Thank God for that!" said Henderson sitting beside her. "Shall I talk
to you?"
She shook her head. So they sat by the hour. At last she spoke: "Of
course, you know there is something I have got to do, Hart!"
"You have not!" cried Henderson, violently. "That's all nonsense! Give
me just one word of permission. That is all that is required of you."
"'Required?' You grant, then, that there is something 'required?'"
"One word. Nothing more."
"Did you ever know one word could be so big, so black, so desperately
bitter? Oh, Hart!"
"No."
"But you know it now, Hart!"
"Yes."
"And still you say that it is 'required?'"
Henderson suffered unspeakably. At last he said: "If you had seen
and heard him, Edith, you, too, would feel that it is 'required.'
Remember----"
"No! No! No!" she cried.
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