"To go back to that, then, why do you ask me?"
"Because I cannot bear to think of your going to be married with that in your possession. Because it is cruel for you so to wrong Miss Caldwell as to marry her while you find it possible to think it may lead you to—to use that. How can you do it! You know I've no sympathy with those who call it cowardly to take one's life. I think we've a right to do that sometimes, perhaps. But it is cowardly to many a woman with the deliberate idea of escaping her if you are not happy; of deserting her after you have inextricably involved her life in yours. You've no right to do that if you mean to make it a tragedy."
"She is involved in my life already," he returned gravely; "and it is a tragedy. But I am not so wholly selfish as you assume. Honestly, Helen, it is for her sake as much, at least, as my own that I wanted that vial. It is all like a scene in The City of Dreadful Night. I cannot be sure that I may not have to kill myself for her happiness. Heaven knows I have not found myself so good company as to have very strong reasons to suppose that any body else will."
"No," Helen said. "That is sophistry. I am a woman and I have been a wife. I know what I say. You have no right to marry any woman and allow the existence of such a possibility. It may not be logic, but it is true."
"But she will not know."
"She may not know, but she will feel. You are too finely strung not to discover to a delicate ear any discord, no matter how hard you try to conceal it; and the ear of a woman who loves is sensitive to the slightest changes. No, Arthur, if you have any love for her, any friendship for me, any respect for yourself, give me that vial."
He made no answer to her appeal for a moment, although she clasped his arm more tightly and looked beseechingly into his face. It was one of those moments when he gave way to his best impulses; when he indulged in the pleasure of letting his higher nature vibrate in response to appeals addressed to it, and for the instant tasted the intoxicating pleasure of conscious virtue. He turned to scrutinize her more closely.
"But what would you do with it, Helen?"
She started a little. She had not been without a half-formed thought that she should be glad to have the deadly gift with its power of swift oblivion in her possession, although until now she had scarcely been conscious of it. But she saw that some suspicion of this was present in Arthur's mind, and must be allayed before she could hope to accomplish her purpose.
"You are wrong," she said quickly. "It is for your own sake that I want you to give it up. I will do whatever you like with it. I pledge you my word that I will never use it myself."