Portia is going over the whole sad story now again, while the sinner walks beside her. Once she lifts her eyes, and looks at him, and tells herself Roger was indeed right when he made much of his beauty. Yet Satan dwells in comely bodies! How sad that a face so inclined to nobility should be stamped with the lines of care, born of dishonor. Tears fill her eyes as she looks at him, and she turns her head quickly away, but not before he has seen and marked the signs of distress within her beautiful eyes. A spasm crosses his face; he recoils a little from her, as though fear possesses him. He frowns; and a curious light—half grief, half anger—grows upon him, and expresses itself upon his quiet lips. Something that is almost agony is in his eyes; truly though the body can know grief, the "sorrows of the soul are graver still."
"What is it that has risen between us?" he asks, suddenly; there is something intense in his tone. "Have you?"—he pauses, and then goes on with an effort—"have you in your heart so utterly condemned me?"
They have come to a stand-still; and Fabian, as he asks this question, is standing with his back against a huge oak tree, his eyes fixed upon his companion. His face is as white as death.
She makes him no answer. A very fine shade of color, so faint as to be almost imperceptible, dyes her cheek for a moment and then vanishes as suddenly as it came, leaving her quite as pallid as he is himself.
"It is the most natural thing in the world to condemn," he goes on, somewhat excitedly. "It is only human. One feels how easy it is. If one hears a damning story about an acquaintance, a story almost unsupported, how readily one inclines to the cruel side. It is not worse in one than in another. We all have a touch of savagery about us—a thirst for blood. For the most part, if placed in a certain set number of circumstances, we all think and act alike. That we should be cast in one mould with the very commonest of our brethren is a humiliating thought, but strictly within the lines of truth. You do condemn me?"
He wishes to force her into saying so. She shrinks from him, and raises one hand to her throat, as though nervous and unhappy.
"I don't know," she says at last, in a low, hesitating tone. "I know nothing. Sometimes I don't even know myself."
"That is always a knowledge difficult of attainment," he says, slowly. "But about me, in your heart, you are sure. You believe you do know. You think me guilty." As he says the word he clenches one hand so firmly that the nails crush into the flesh.
"I would rather not talk about it," says Portia, faintly.
By a terrible effort he recovers himself; a quick breath, that is almost a sigh, escapes him.