“I thought I did—once,” he answered with a twisted smile, and brushed the shining hair tenderly from off her forehead.
Physical pain had been forgotten in the mental agony that swamped her but now, remembering, too late she tried to stop him and he had seen the ugly wound on her white brow before her flying hand reached his. A sharp exclamation broke from him. “What have you done to yourself? My God, has he dared—” His face was ghastly and the look in his blazing eyes terrified her. Fearful of the consequences of his anger, fearful of she knew not what, she lied to shield the husband who had struck her.
“No—no—” she panted. “I slipped—I slipped in my room last night.”
Love and intuition told him that she was lying and he put her from him with a groan of helpless misery. And free of his supporting arm she slid to the ground for her limbs were trembling under her. He sat down near her, staring gloomily before him, wondering how he could bring himself to leave her, tortured with what he had seen and cursing the man whom, more than ever, he longed to kill.
Her sorrowful eyes never left his stern, set face and at last she could bear the silence no longer. Her hand stole out timidly and touched his. “What are we going to do?” She waited long for his answer, so long that she wondered if he had heard the faint whisper, and her trembling fingers tightened on his arm. “Gervas, speak to me,” she entreated.
“What is there for me to say,” he answered, and his voice was harsh with the effort speech cost him. “There is nothing to do but the one hard thing that is left to us. We have got to forget that this morning has ever been. We have got to forget everything but the fact that you are bound, that you are not free to come to me. If there was some other way, if I could have taken you—” He tore his eyes from her face and leaped to his feet. “But there is no other way,” he cried with sudden violence. “I can’t take you. You’ve got to forget, and forgive me—if you can.”
She buried her face in her hands.
“Forget!” she wailed. “Will you forget?”
“Not in this life nor in the life to come,” he whispered swiftly.
With a sob that wrung his heart she flung out her arms appealing. “I can’t bear it, Gervas, I can’t live without you.”