"Do you know that, if you had committed all the crimes in the calendar, a capital sentence could not be executed upon you now."
"Think of it!" she said, with indignant eyes. "They'd not only keep the sword hanging over a poor wretch all that time—they'd let her horror and shrinking stamp itself on an innocent creature. Oh, man's justice is an odd jumble!"
"If public justice falls short, what of mine to you?" He walked a few paces up and down. "I've never seen you like this before, Val."
"I've never before lived through such days," she said, very low.
"You deceived me with your calmness."
"You see how necessary it was—you wouldn't have understood that I didn't want to break my oath."
"I understand now." He stopped before her with haggard face. "I come here into a girl's happy life—I take away her content, I snuff out her ambitions, I give her nothing in return. For years I bar the way to marriage—for all time I've shut the door on music. It is my fault you were allowed no outlet for your energies. I force you back on a barren love for a life-interest, and saying, 'There is only this,' I add, 'Accept it at your peril.' I am filled with horror at the thought of the way I've marred and broken a beautiful life."
"Oh, dear one, don't, don't! It's not true, you know. It wasn't really beautiful till you came."
He shook his head.