A spasm of pain passed across her face. At that moment her thoughts were only concerned with his safety. The terrible suggestiveness of what he had told her had very little real meaning for her then. Her one thought was, could she buy those papers? If all her fortune could do it, it should be given. Only let him never know, and let him be safe!
"Bernard," she whispered softly, "I am not afraid. It is very terrible, but it cannot alter anything. Love cannot come and go at our bidding. It is forever. Nothing can change that."
He stopped her lips with passionate kisses, and then he tried to tear himself away. But she would not let him go. A touch of that complete self-surrender which comes even to the proudest woman when she loves had made her bold.
"Have I not told you, Bernard," she whispered, "that I will not let you go?"
"Helen, you must," he said hoarsely. "Who knows but that to-morrow I may stand in the dock, charged with that hideous crime?"
"If they will let me, I shall gladly stand by your side," she answered.
He turned away, and his shaking fingers hid his face from her.
"Oh, this is too much for a man to bear!" he moaned. "Helen, Helen, there must be nothing of this between you and me."
"Nothing between you and me!" she repeated with a ring of gentle scorn in her voice. "Bernard, do you know so little of women, after all? Do you think that they can play at love in this give-and-take fashion?"
He did not answer. She stood up and passed one of her arms around his neck, and with the other hand gently disengaged his fingers from before his face.