"Save me?" she repeated.
He went on speaking with great speed. His eyes were fixed on her own, and they were filled with a light that was rich and sweet. She had never known him to be like this before; he was just as tender as of old, but beneath his tenderness there was a strength, a decision, a virile assertion, that gave him a new, startling personality.
"Yes," he said, "to save you. There is no great mischief done, as it is. I think some woman sent me your letter. It is just what some envious or spiteful woman would do. But I have it, and can destroy it. You ask me what course I mean to take. You ask me whether I shall bid you to leave my house. My only answer, Claire, is this: if you have no love for me, then I have a very great love for you. I think you knew this long ago. I am your friend, poor child—not only your husband, but your friend. You shan't go wrong while I have the brain and the nerve to stand between you and folly. Other men might take another course. I don't care. You are pure, still; I am certain of it, and you shall remain pure. You are my wife; I will protect you; it's my duty to protect you. You have never loved me; you married me without a spark of love. But I gave you as large a love as man ever gave to woman. It's in my heart still. It can never die. If it were not so large and so true it would not seek to guard and shield you now. But it does—it must.... Claire, Claire, you have been terribly foolish! A little more, and I could have done nothing to save you. A little more, and I must have cast you off. But as it is, I can and will plant myself between you and disgrace!"
He had been holding her hand all through the utterance of these words. But now he released it, and slightly withdrew from her.
She advanced toward him. There was a look of absolute awe on her face. She recognized how much her own blindness had been hiding from her. His very stature seemed to have risen. His tolerance appealed to her with sublimity. It flashed through her mind: 'What other man would have acted as he has done?'
In a few brief moments she knew him as the noble and high being he really was. The tears besieged her eyes. The enormity of the wrong she had done him horrified her. She stood quivering in his presence. The impulse assailed her literally to kneel before him. She grasped his arm; her dry, tearless eyes searched his pale face with a madness of contrition in their look.
"Herbert," she faltered.... "Herbert, I—I never knew till now that you could be so grand and strong! What kept me from loving you was your own love for me. It seemed to make you weak; it seemed to put you below me. You were always yielding to me—always paying me reverence. But I should have bowed before you. You were worthy of it, and I did not see ... I never saw till now!... Herbert, I love you!... Oh, these are not idle words! They spring straight from my soul! If you want the repentance of my future life, it is yours! Why did you not show me your real self till so late? What shall I do to prove my love? You must not pardon me so easily—no, I cannot endure that! It makes me sick with shame to be treated so! Such a mercy would be cruelty. You must punish me, somehow—I must undergo some penance, the harder the better. You have no right to trust me again until I have passed through some sort of cleansing fire—suffered, been mortified, humiliated, taught a stern and fearful lesson! You gave me everything; there was nothing in the world I did not owe to you; you lifted me from dependence into the most brilliant prosperity. And I—Good Heavens! I was a viper of ingratitude! I might call it madness; I might say that the lust for riches and power made me conceive this treacherous and contemptible idea of deserting you—made me decide that we could not live together when the wealth had gone. But it was no madness—there was too clear a method in it for that. It was merely base and mean—it can have no palliative.... Herbert, don't look at me with any love, any pity in your face. I can't bear it—I—I want to creep away somewhere and die. I am not fit to have you touch me—No, no! you must not!" ...
She had receded from him; she meant to quit the room, though her limbs felt weak and her head giddy, and she was not sure whether she could reach the doorway without falling. But on a sudden his arms clasped her. How strong they seemed! She had never till now had so keen a sense of even his bodily strength. When his lips touched her own she burst into tears. She was still struggling to free herself, but he held her too firmly; she could not escape.
"Claire," she heard him say, with a tenderness of tone more exquisite than any he had yet used, "I couldn't help forgiving you, dear, no matter how hard I might try. Oh, darling, let us begin all over again! You say that you do love me at last! Well, I believe you! I want to believe you, and I will! How could I ever punish you? You haven't been so greatly to blame—don't torment yourself by thinking you have. People were flattering and courting you; they made you a perfect queen; they turned your head. Now all that is over. I think there is a great happiness in store for us both, my love—a happiness that the money never brought us while it lasted. Perhaps, after all, it is better that I should find you weak. It makes you more human in my sight. I shan't bow down before you any more, as you say that I did; I shall only love you ... love you forever—love you till death, and beyond it, too, I hope!"
He was kissing her cheek as he uttered these final words; but it had already seemed to take a certain chill, and in another moment he was forced to bear up her form, for it had no power whatever of self-support. She had fainted in his arms....