“And now,” she said, “you must go, my friend.”
“Go?” Damier repeated.
Years of resolute endurance looked from her eyes; the weariness was not a wavering. Her face seemed sinking back into the abyss from which he had rescued it.
“Yes, you must go.”
“And leave you with her!”
“And leave me with her,” she assented monotonously.
“Never—never!”
She passed her hand over her brow, pressing her eyelids, as if in the effort to dispel her deep fatigue and find words with which to answer his harassing protest.
“Yet you must. I have the wonder, the treasure of your love for me. I will keep it always. I will never forget you. But it is impossible, even the friendship, now. We must not drag what is dear to us in the mire. I could not keep you as my friend under her eyes. I must live with her, and for her; that is the only life possible for me. I made it for myself. Whatever her cruelty, whatever her baseness, I have only to remember that I am responsible for her, that I am her only chance. And after this her presence in my life makes yours wrong. She knows now that you are not a friend only, and as a husband you could not remain. Such a ménage à trois would be as detestable as it would be grotesque.”