“But you are young,” she murmured. “There are things in the world worth having. There is a life there worth living. Solitude such as this is the greatest panacea the world could offer for all you have been through. But it is not meant to last. We want you back again, Bertrand.”
His eyes were suddenly on fire. He shrank a little away from her.
“Don’t!” he begged. “Don’t, Pauline. I am living my punishment here, and I have borne it without once looking back. Don’t make it harder.”
“I do not wish to make it harder,” she declared, “and yet I meant what I said. It is not right that you should spend all your days here. It is not right for your own sake, it is not right——”
She held out her hands to him suddenly.
“It is not right for mine,” she whispered.
Rochester stepped outside. Again the snow had ceased. In the forest he could hear the whirl of machinery and the crashing of the falling timber. He stood for a moment with clenched hands, with unseeing eyes, with ears in which was ringing still the memory of that low, passionate cry. And then the fit passed. He looked down to the little half-way house where he had left his wife. He fancied he could see someone waving a white handkerchief from the platform of pine logs. It was all so right, after all, so right and natural. He began to descend alone.
Saton brought her down about an hour later. Their faces told all that there was to say.
“Bertrand is going to stay here for another year,” Pauline said, answering Lady Mary’s unspoken question. “The first part of his work with Naudheim will be finished then, and we think he will have earned a vacation.”
Saton held out his hands to Rochester.