They dwelt on him; they widened; they almost smiled; they deeply promised him all—all—that he most longed for. She was his, her son's; she was not her husband's. What he had feared had never threatened him or her. This was a gift she had won the right to give. The depth of her repudiation yesterday gave her her warrant.
And to Amabel, while they looked into each other's eyes, it was as if, in the darkness, some arching loveliness of dawn vaguely shaped itself above the altar.
"Kiss me, dear Augustine," she said. She held up her forehead, closing her eyes, for the kiss that was her own.
Augustine was gone. And now, before her, was the ugly breaking. But must it be so ugly? Opening her eyes, she looked at her husband as he stood before the fire, his wondering eyes upon her. Must it be ugly? Why could it not be quiet and even kind?
Strangely there had gathered in her, during the long hours, the garnered strength of her life of discipline and submission. It had sustained her through the shudder that glanced back at yesterday—at the corruption that had come so near; it had given sanity to see with eyes of compassion the forsaken woman who had come with her courageous, revengeful story; it gave sanity now, as she looked over at her husband, to see him also, with those eyes of compassionate understanding; he was not blackened, to her vision, by the shadowing corruption, but, in his way, pitiful, too; all the worth of life lost to him.
And it seemed swiftest, simplest, and kindest, as she looked over at him, to say:—"You see—Lady Elliston came this afternoon, and told me everything."
Sir Hugh kept his face remarkably unmoved. He continued to gaze at his wife with an unabashed, unstartled steadiness. "I might have guessed that," he said after a short silence. "Confound her."
Amabel made no reply.
"So I suppose," Sir Hugh went on, "you feel you can't forgive me."
She hesitated, not quite understanding. "You mean—for having married me—when you loved her?"