She found herself as wax in his hands. She could not plan for herself. If only the ocean were not so broad!
"There is one thing more, Margaret—a simple matter of business." It may have been a simple matter, but it seemed difficult for him to begin it.
"When Philip came to me last fall," he said, speaking gravely, but in a business-like tone, "I made a will by which everything I had was to go to him at my death. I have since taken steps to settle one half on him now in such a way that while I shall still have the care of it, the income will be immediately available for his use. No," answering the flush that swept over her pale face, "I have not forgotten what you said." She had told him once that she would rather Philip would starve than be dependant on him. "But you can't keep a man from doing what he wants to with his own. It is settled. Poor little chap. It is all the reparation I can make.
"As for you, Margaret," he went on, "I do not ask you to forgive me. I do not expect you to forgive. If there be an unpardonable sin I think I have committed it, for I have sinned against you, against womanhood, and against nature. When I think of you as I have seen you every minute of these three days, with what may be a blind child in your arms, I feel that the pitying mother of God could hardly forgive."
"You blame yourself unjustly for that," she said with quick generosity. "It might have happened if he had been with me."
"It would not have happened if he had been with you. You would have looked to his ways. You would not have been so immersed in business that you would have neglected a signal that meant danger to your child. But I—poor blind stubborn fool—"
"Let us not talk about it any more," she said gently. There was something in his remorse that touched her deeply. "It is done and it cannot be undone. I have never thought it was from any lack of love for Philip. You simply violated a law of nature—and nature's laws are the laws of God. He never intended men to have the care of little children." She would have been more than human if she had not said that much.
Once more he got up abruptly, walking to the further end of the arbor and back again. She thought she had angered him. When he spoke, it was standing, the green pathway between them, instead of at her side.
"You've beaten me, Margaret," he said, with a shake of the head. He was looking down at her with a half satirical smile on his lips. But it was of the lips only. There was no lightening of the gloom in the eyes bent upon her. "I wonder if you know how complete my rout has been."
She looked up quickly.