He turned toward the couch with his hand outstretched, but during the minute or two in which Olivia and he had been facing each other Guion had drawn the rug over his face. Beneath it there was a convulsive shaking, from which the younger man turned away. With a nod of comprehension to Olivia he tiptoed softly from the room. As he did so he could see her kneel beside the couch and kiss the hand that lay outside the coverlet.
She overtook him, however, when he was downstairs picking up his hat and stick from the hall table.
She stood on the lowest step of the stairs, leaning on the low, white pillar that finished the balustrade. He was obliged to pass her on his way to the door. The minute was the more awkward for him owing to the fact that she did not take the initiative in carrying it off. On the contrary, she made it harder by looking at him gravely without speaking.
"It's relief," he said, nodding with understanding toward the room up-stairs. "I've seen men do that before—after they'd been facing some danger or other with tremendous pluck."
He spoke for the sake of saying something, standing before her with his hat and stick in his hand, not seeing precisely how he was to get away.
"It's a relief to me, too," she said, simply. "You can't imagine what it's been the last few days—seeing things go to pieces like that. Now, I suppose, they'll hold together somehow, though it can't be very well. I dare say you think me all wrong—"
He shook his head.
"I couldn't see any other way. When you've done wrong as we've done it, you'd rather be punished. You don't want to go scot-free. It's something like the kind of impulse that made the hermits and ascetics submit to scourging. But it's quite possible that I shouldn't have had the courage to go through with it—especially if papa had broken down. As you said from the first, I didn't see what was truly vital."
"I shouldn't blame myself too much for that, Miss Guion. It often happens that one only finds the right way by making two or three plunges into wrong ones."
"Do you think I've found it now?"