Nan, did you _want_ me to ?" The leash was slipping.

She trembled, aching to answer him as her whole soul dictated, to tell him the truth--that she wanted him every minute of the day and that life without him stretched before her like a barren waste.
"I--we--oh, you're making it so hard for me!" she said imploringly.
"Please go--go, now!" Instead, he caught her in his arms, holding her crushed against his breast.
"No, I'm not going.

Oh, Nan--little Nan that I love! I can't give you up again.

Beloved!--Soul of me!" And all the love and longing, against which he had struggled unavailingly throughout those empty months of separation, came pouring from his lips in a torrent of passionate pleading that shook her heart.
With an effort she tore herself free--wrenched herself away from the arms whose clasp about her body thrilled her from head to foot.
Somewhere in one of the cells of her brain she was conscious of a perfectly clear understanding of the fact that she must be quite mad to fight for escape from the sole thing in life she craved.

Celia Mallory didn't really count--nor Roger and her pledge to him.