Again the darkness descended upon her, the black noose fastened about her throat. How soon could she come to him forever? How soon? She laughed strangely, and answered him with silence, but in the leaden weight of that silence she was saying: “Never.... Never.”
“Put me down,” she said, in a voice that compelled him to obey. When she stood facing him, her knees trembling, a look of such piteousness on her face as made him draw a great breath of solicitude, she looked into his eyes—looked with steadiness. “I can never come to you, Potter,” she said. “Never.”
He laughed. “Don’t joke, sweetheart. I can’t bear that sort of joking now.”
“It’s no—joke,” she said, brokenly. “I—I never want to see you again. You must never try to see me.... Never speak of this. I—oh—I can never marry any man.”
“What?” he asked, sharply.
“I can never marry any man.... You don’t know.... There are terrible things—frightful things.... I am defiled, defiled.... And I love you....”
She turned suddenly and ran from the room, sobbing and panting as she ran. He did not follow her, but looked after her with wide eyes into which horror was making its way.
“Defiled!” he whispered once; then he stood erect, staring straight before him while one might have counted to a hundred slowly. After that he walked to the door of his private room, stepped inside, and shut the door after him.
CHAPTER XIV
It had been with Potter as if he had stood upon a lofty height surveying wonders and had fallen with incredible swiftness through darkness to strike the ground with frightful impetus. He felt the shock of that impact as if his physical body had been in collision instead of his soul.... Defiled! The word was stamped in letters that burnt across his consciousness; his brain groped and fumbled about it as if it were some strange, monstrous thing no intelligence could grasp. Every other created thing was obliterated.