She sank back away from him. Without another word he turned and left her.
In the street the frost snapped at him like the very watchdog of desolation. He huddled his cloak about him with a shudder as he faced it.
“It is for the best,” he thought. “To be away—from the terror of my own weakness! Any auberge will serve for the night.”
He strode a few paces, crunching over the snow, and stopped.
“I might, at least, have quitted her of the worst of her remorse. It would have been a little return for such love—my God, such love!”
Should he go back at once and tell her that she was guiltless of the little brother’s actual death?
“Fool!” whispered Belial, still reasoning with him. “Does her love for you alter the moral? And will you, an emotional bearer of forgiveness, escape so easily a second time? The warm nest in the bed, fool!”
He turned, and refaced the chill emptiness of the night.
“I must not,” he thought. “She shall know the truth to-morrow.”