"Surely! Some one has been putting notions into your head."
"Why take that for granted?" she asked, equably. "The pity of the whole thing is obvious enough, isn't it? Sometimes I think that we were a pair of fools. We played into the hands of fate. We were brought face to face with a terrible situation. Instead of meeting it bravely we played the coward. Why don't you forget, Lawrence, as I have done? Take up your work again. Set a seal upon—that memory."
"I have outgrown my ambitions," he answered. "Life was hot enough in my veins then. Desire grows cold with the years. I am content."
"But I," she answered, "am not."
"We each chose our life," he reminded her.
"Perhaps. I am not satisfied with my choice. You may be with yours."
"I am."
She leaned over towards him.
"Once," she said, "you offered me what you called—atonement. I refused it. Just then it seemed horrible. Now that feeling has passed away. I am lonely, Lawrence, and I am weary of the sort of life I have been living. Supposing I asked you to make me that offer again?"
Mannering turned slowly towards her. He was not a man who easily showed emotion, but there were traces of it now in his face. The hand which rested on the back of his chair shook. There was in his eyes the look of a man who sees evil things.