He went up to her in the dusk, put his hands gently on her shoulders. The quivering frame became still suddenly, with a greater nervousness. She was like a deer ready to bound away....
"I don't see what I could have done, Claire-Anne. But—can I do anything now?"
She turned toward him suddenly. Her face was a mask of pain—and surprise.
"Then you haven't grown cold to me, unmerciful, ... or gross?"
"Why, no, Claire-Anne!"
"And you know."
"I—know, but I don't understand...."
She gave a queer, little shuddering cry, half laugh, half sob. She moved over to the seat by the whispering mulberry-tree, and dropped in it, her hands covering her face.
"All the wrong," she said, "that people call wrong I've done I didn't mind. But the one decent thing—of loving you—that's kept me awake all the time you were away. It's been like a sin, letting you love me. The rest was destiny, but this one thing was—I."
She suddenly raised her face, her eyes shining through the humid mask of it.