"Not that!" he cried, with a sudden heat that amazed himself. "Not that, Maggie. Why that?"
"Why that?" she repeated in wondering tones. "What else do you mean? You don't mean we should go on like this?"
He did not dare to answer either way. The one was now impossible—had swiftly, as he looked at her, come to seem impossible; the other was to treat her as not even he could treat her. She was not of the stuff to live a life like that.
There was silence while he waged with himself that strange preposterous struggle, where evil seemed good, and good a treachery not to be committed; wherein his brain seemed to invite to meanness, and his passion, for once, to point the better way.
"I wish to God we had never——" he began; but her despairing eyes stifled the feeble useless sentence on his lips.
At last he came near to her; the lines were deep on his forehead, and his mouth quivered under a forced smile. He laid his hand on her shoulder. She looked up questioningly.
"You know what you're asking?" he said.
She nodded her head.
"Then so be it," said he; and he went again and leant against the mantelpiece.
He felt that he had paid a debt with his life, but knew not whether the payment were too high.