“The certainty, Paul, as it turned out. I should not be in the sunshine on this roof now if you had listened to me,” she interrupted; but Paul was not to be led aside.
“What I mean is that you are not responsible. I am, I alone. Therefore, there’s no reason why you should cut yourself off from all the things which make life lovely,” he continued. “For it means that, my dear. All the things which make life lovely will go.”
“Except one,” said Marguerite, quietly, “and that one outweighs all the rest.”
Still Paul would not turn to her.
“Think well, Marguerite!” and he spoke without stirring, in a level, toneless voice, so that no spark of his desire might kindle her to a sacrifice which, after days, monotonous and lonely, would lead her bitterly to regret. “Think carefully! You can travel in a little while to the coast. You can go home. No one can gainsay you. You will not be poor any more. In a few years you will be able to look back upon all this as a dream. . . .”
“Don’t, Paul!” she said, in a low voice. “You hurt me. You make me ashamed. How could I go home and live, leaving you here?”
But what hurt and shamed her most, she could not tell him. It was the knowledge that this hero of hers, this—her man who could do no wrong, had done such wrong for her that he was now an outcast who must dodge and duck his head, and slink unrecognized in the shadows. Her pain, however, was evident enough in the quiver of her voice and the tight clasp of her hand upon his arm.
“Look at me, Paul!”
She waited until he had turned, and her great eyes, dewy and tender, rested upon his.
“Where you go, I go. That was settled for us at the Villa Iris on the night we met, perhaps even before that.”