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Her voice reached him out of the darkness. "To own that we've been mistaken takes more courage than to persist in the wrong direction. 'I want no one else!' We've all said that. It was through saying it that I brought about my shipwreck. But if you're sure that you want no one else, you must
have her. If there's any way of getting her for you, I'll do my best to help."
She made an effort to rise. She stood before him swaying, a blinded look on her face, her eyes closed, her hands stretched out. He placed his arm about her. Her weight sagged against him.
"Not the servants," she whispered. "You and I. Give me air."
With his free hand he jerked the catch and pushed the window wide. The cool dampness of the night streamed in on her. He stood there with her clasped against him, her head stretched back, her body drooping. In the bowl of darkness at the foot of the turret, the rose-garden floated. Out of sight, in the green-scummed moat, a fish leapt with a sullen splash. A bird called. Wheels rumbled on a distant road. Again the silence was unbroken. The moonlight, falling on her face, gave to it an expression of childishness. Her breast and throat, gleaming white as marble, reminded him she was a woman.
She stirred. Her eyes opened. She gazed up at him wonderingly. "I'm better. Foolish of me!" Then, inconsequently, "How tall you are, Lord Taborley!"
He supported her till she could lean across the sill. They leant there together, their faces nearly touching. His arm was still about her; she did not seem to notice it. He was dumb with tremulous expectancy.
"It was about myself that I had to tell you," she whispered. "I was once like you. I wanted no one else. I knew, even while I wanted him, that he could
never make me happy. Even when I was most in love with him, he had qualities which I distrusted. After marriage the distrusting grew. Yet all the while I was sorry for him. I would have given anything to undo—— His sins were mine. With another woman, less virtuous, he might have been good. In his yearning he tried to drag me down. I couldn't go, not even if going would have saved him. There was something in me, not exactly pride, that prevented. I have never spoken of this to anybody. I'm saying it to you because——"