Have I no value to you?" he asked. He turned to Gabrielle. Her face was anguished and still as she looked at him. I couldn't know what went on in her heart, and to my sadness, I realized that he was speaking to her and locking me out. What was her answer?
But he was imploring both of us now. "Is there nothing outside yourself you would respect?"
"I might have destroyed you tonight," I said. "It was respect which kept me from that."
"No." He shook his head in a startlingly human fashion. "That you never could have done."
I smiled. It was probably true. But we were destroying him quite completely in another way.
"Yes," he said, "that's true. You are destroying me. Help me," he whispered. "Give me but a few short years of all you have before you, the two of you. I beg you. That is all I
