At this, the silent figure in the doorway draws her breath, painfully, and catches hold of the lintel as though to steady herself. Her lips tremble, a momentary fear that she may be going to faint terrifies her; then a voice, cold and uncompromising falling on her ears, restores her to something like composure.
"Do not ask me that, anything but that;" it is Dulce who is speaking. "I cannot."
At this, the girl standing in the doorway, as though unable to endure more, comes slowly forward, and advances until she is within the full glare of the lamplight. It is Portia. She is deadly pale; and her black robes clinging round her render the pallor of her face even more ghastly. She has raised one hand, and is trifling nervously with the string of pearls that always lies round her white throat; she does not look at Fabian, not even for one instant does she permit her eyes to seek his, but lets them rest on Dulce, sadly, reproachfully.
"Why can you not forgive me?" she says; "is not your revenge complete? You have, indeed, kept your word. Now that I am sad at heart, why will you not try to forgive?"
"Yes—forgive." It is Fabian who says this; he lays his hand upon Dulce's arm, and regards her earnestly.
"You ask me to forgive—you! You would have me be kind to this traitress!" returns she, passionately, glancing back at Portia, over her shoulder, with angry eyes. "Do you forgive her yourself?"
"I am beyond the pale of forgiveness so far as he is concerned," says Portia, slowly. "It is to you I appeal. I have loved you well, that should count for something. As for your brother, I understand—I know that he will never forgive and never forget!"
"You are right," says Fabian, addressing her for the first time, yet without letting his glance meet hers, "I shall never forget!"
A sob rises in Portia's throat; there is a terrible sadness in his tone, the more terrible because of the stern restraint he has laid upon himself.
"Go to her," he says to Dulce, and the girl who has never disobeyed a wish of his in all her life goes up to Portia and lays her hand in hers.