"A stronger man might have borne it longer—into old age, perhaps, as Yeoland said. I could not. I've got nothing much beyond my self-respect. That's the sole thing that has kept me from destroying you, and him."
She thought upon this, but did not answer it.
"Sleep now," he said, after a pause. "'Tis the day-spring nearly. I've wearied you, but it had to be. Speak to me again about the matter in a week. And don't fear me any more. Passion against him is clean passed and gone. Just a gust of nature, I suppose, that makes the males fight in season. I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head—or his."
She nestled closer.
"Why wait a week when there is no need to wait a day, or an hour? I love you—better than anybody in the world; and I'll tell Christopher that; also that I have done great wrong in this matter; and I ask you, Myles, to take me where I shall never see him again—for his good and because I love you with my whole heart—all, all of it. And judge me by what I do henceforth and not what I say now. See how I shall order my life—let that convince you."
He did not speak, but his silence was cardinal—a hinge on which his whole spirit turned.
"You believe me, Myles? You know that I have never spoken an untruth to you."
A sigh rose, and seemed to pass away like an embodied trouble under the first dawn light—to depart like a presence from the man and leave him changed.
"I believe you—I believe you. I wish I could feel a personal God—to kneel to Him and thank Him, and to let my life thank Him henceforth."
"I'm a very wicked woman, and I ought to have lived in the Stone days, for I deserve nothing better than a hut circle and a cruel master to beat me. I should have been kicked about by some old, Neolithic hero with his dogs. I'm not big enough to deserve the love of a man like you, not wise enough even to rate the depth and height of it. But you shall see I can learn still and be single-hearted too. I'll live differently—higher; I'll aim anew—at the sun—I'll—I'll——"