A second time, you saved not me alone but the ten others who are left
out of the twenty-two, by bringing us back to Grand-pere in the hour
that our escape seemed to be assured had we put out to sea. We are
more than quits, dear heart, when we strike a balance of mutual
service. We are bound by a tie of comradeship that is denied to most.
And who shall sever it? The man who gains three times the worth of his
ship by reason of the very dangers we have shared! To state such a mad
proposition is to answer it. Who is he that he should sunder those
whom God has joined together? And what other man and woman now
breathing can lay better claim than we to have been joined by the
Almighty?"
The strange exigencies of their lives during the past two days had
ordained that this should be Philip's first avowal of his feelings.
Under the stress of overpowering impulse he had clasped Iris to his
heart when they were parting on the island. In obedience to a stronger
law than any hitherto revealed to her innocent consciousness the girl
had flown to his arms when he came to the hut. And that was all their
love-making, two blissful moments of delirium wrenched from a time of a
gaunt tragedy, and followed by a few hours of self-negation. Yet they
sufficed--to the man--and the woman is never too ready to count the
cost when her heart declares its passion.
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