Mary followed him nearly to the door of the room, but when he turned he saw that she had stopped, and was standing with her hands over her face, as if in tears.
He went back to her and said: "I tried to avoid this, and if you had helped me, it would never—" But he remembered how he had always despised Adam for throwing the blame upon Eve, no matter how much she may have deserved it, and continued: "No; I do not mean that. It is all my fault. I should have gone away long ago. I could not help it; I tried. Oh! I tried."
Mary's eyes were bent upon the floor, and tears were falling over her flushed cheeks, unheeded and unchecked.
"There is no fault in any one; neither could I help it," she murmured.
"No, no; it is not that there is any fault in the ordinary sense; it is like suicide or any other great, self-inflicted injury with me. I am different from other men. I shall never recover."
"I know only too well that you are different from other men, and—and I, too, am different from other women—am I not?"
"Ah, different! There is no other woman in all this wide, long world," and they were in each other's arms again. She turned her shoulder to him and rested with the support of his arms about her. Her eyes were cast down in silence, and she was evidently thinking as she toyed with the lace of his doublet. Brandon knew her varying expressions so well that he saw there was something wanting, so he asked:
"Is there something you wish to say?"
"Not I," she responded with emphasis on the pronoun.
"Then is it something you wish me to say?"