"O heart of mine!" she whispered to Larry, gazing deep into his eyes, his anxious face cupped between her white palms.
"This they say--that should the Shining One come to succour Yolara and Lugur, should it conquer its fear--and--do this--then is there but one way left to destroy it--and to save your world." She swayed; he gripped her tightly.
"But one way--you and I must go--together--into its embrace! Yea, we must pass within it--loving each other, loving the world, realizing to the full all that we sacrifice and sacrificing all, our love, our lives, perhaps even that you call soul, O loved one; must give ourselves _all_ to the Shining One--gladly, freely, our love for each other flaming high within us--that this curse shall pass away! For if we do this, pledge the Three, then shall that power of love we carry into it weaken for a time all that evil which the Shining One has become--and in that time the Three can strike and slay!" The blood rushed from my heart; scientist that I am, essentially, my reason rejected any such solution as this of the activities of the Dweller.

Was it not, the thought flashed, a propitiation by the Three out of their own weakness--and as it flashed I looked up to see their eyes, full of sorrow, on mine--and knew they read the thought.

Then into the whirling vortex of my mind came steadying reflections--of history changed by the power of hate, of passion, of ambition, and most of all, by love.

Was there not actual dynamic energy in these things--was there not a Son of Man who hung upon a cross on Calvary?
"Dear love o' mine," said the O'Keefe quietly, "is it in your heart to say _yes_ to this ?" "Larry," she spoke low, "what is in your heart is in mine; but I did so want to go with you, to live with you--to--to bear you children, Larry--and to see the sun." My eyes were wet; dimly through them I saw his gaze on me.
"If the world _is_ at stake," he whispered, "why of course there's only one thing to do.

God knows I never was afraid when I was fighting up there--and many a better man than me has gone West with shell and bullet for the same idea; but these things aren't shell and bullet--but I hadn't Lakla then--and it's the damned _doubt_ I have behind it all." He turned to the Three--and did I in their poise sense a rigidity, an anxiety that sat upon them as alienly as would divinity upon men?
"Tell me this, Silent Ones," he cried.