Her face was white, her eyelids closed over her eyes. Tony thought that she had swooned. But when he moved her hands held him close to her, held him tightly, as though she dreaded to lose him.
"Millie," he said, "do you remember the lights in Oban Bay? And the gulls calling at night above the islands?"
"I am forgiven, then?" she whispered; and he answered only--
"Hush!"
But the one word was enough.
CHAPTER XXXVI
[THE END]
Tony wished for no mention of the word. He had not brought her to that house that he might forgive her, but because he wanted her there. If forgiveness was in question, there was much to be said upon her side too. He was to blame, as Pamela had written. He had during the last few months begun to realise the justice of that sentence more clearly than he had done even when the letter was fresh within his thoughts.
"I have learnt something," he said to Millie, "which I might have known before, but never did. It is this. Although a man may be content to know that love exists, that is not the case with women. They want the love expressed, continually expressed, not necessarily in words, but in a hundred little ways. I did not think of that. There was the mistake I made: I left you alone to think just what you chose. Well, that's all over now. I bought this house not merely to please you, but as much to please myself; for as soon as I understood that after all the compromise which I dreaded need not be our lot--that after all the life together of which I used to dream was possible, was within arm's reach if only one would put out an arm and grasp it, I wanted you here. As soon as I was sure, quite sure that I had recaptured you, I wanted you here."
He spoke with passion, holding her in his arms. Millie remained quite still for a while, and then she asked--