He looked back fiercely at her, knowing that he was going to stammer, and furious at himself.
“I—I haven’t,” he said. “Wh—what do you mean? I——” And then his voice failed him; his lips stuttered, trying to say something, but no sound came. She seemed not to have heard his denial.
“No wonder you thought I was in your cabin,” she said. “All my soul was there. Oh, Thurso, don’t despair, there’s a good fellow!”
Then something seemed to break within him. He could not go on telling lies to her. Perhaps it was because he was tired, and could not summon up the energy to protest; perhaps it was that for very shame he could not. It was simpler, too, to tell the truth. He cared so little.
“No, it is hopeless,” he said. “I am tired of trying and failing. As soon as my strength came back to me a little to-day the craving came back. I brought a bottle of the stuff with me. Oh yes, I told you I hadn’t; I lied—I lied gorgeously; you never suspected it. All the time we were talking this afternoon I wanted only one thing—to get away to my cabin. I didn’t care what I said to you in order to secure that. Now I suppose you’ll want me to give up the rest of the stuff. Well, I can’t. I don’t want anything in the world except it. And it’s no use your thinking that I can ever get better. I have given up all hope. You had better do the same.”
For one moment Maud felt that he spoke the truth, that he was beyond power of recall. But the next her whole soul and strength was up in arms, fighting, denying that thought, passionately reversing it. There was nothing in the world that could be compared with the reality of Infinite Love; she had known that so well to-day, and already she was letting error obscure it. Vehemently, vigorously, she fought that error, and then suddenly she wondered what she had been fighting. For there was nothing there; her blows were rained upon emptiness. It was as if she had dreamed she was fighting. And she spoke to Thurso as she might have spoken to a child who was afraid of the dark, while in her hands she carried the Great Light.
“You silly boy!” she said. “What can you mean by such nonsense? How can I give you up? How is it possible for me to give up one whom I love? You can’t give up love. You are frightened, you know, and there’s nothing in the world to frighten you. You said this afternoon things that made me unutterably happy, and now you come and tell me they were lies, that you didn’t mean them. I’m sorry you didn’t mean them, but they weren’t lies. They were all perfectly true.”
That sombre smouldering of despair in his eyes faded.
“Do you mean you can possibly ever trust me again?” he asked. Then he added quickly: “But I can’t give you the bottle—I can’t.”
Maud almost laughed.