‘I don’t see how I can get well if I’m not ill,’ she said gently.
‘Why do you want to take hope from me?’ he answered.
‘I only don’t want any more lies. I shan’t look different again from what I do now. I shan’t go back, I mean, to what I was. But perhaps presently—when you’ve had time to get over——’
She hesitated, and then went on humbly,—for she was vividly conscious of the wrong she had done him, vividly aware that she ought to have saved him from himself whatever the pressure had been that was brought to bear on her, however great his misery was at the moment,—‘Presently I thought perhaps I might somehow make up for what I’ve done. I thought perhaps I might somehow comfort you——’
She hesitated again. ‘I don’t quite know how, though,’ she said, her voice more and more humble, ‘but I’d try.’ And then she said, almost in a whisper, ‘That is, if you will let me.’
‘Let you!’ he exclaimed, stabbed by her humbleness.
‘Yes. And if it’s no good, Chris, and you’d rather not, then of course I’ll—let you go.’
He turned round quickly. ‘What, in God’s name, do you mean by that?’ he asked.
‘Set you free,’ said Catherine, doing her best to look up at him unflinchingly.
He stared at her. ‘How?’ he asked. ‘I don’t understand. In what way, set me free?’