"It is not that I mind," he answered. "If I could take all the misery of it I shouldn't care, but I have made you suffer, and for the sin that is mine alone."
For a moment she was silent, breathing quickly between parted lips; then turning with an impulsive gesture, she laid her cheek upon the hand hanging at his side.
"Not yours alone," she said softly, "for it has become mine, too."
Before the wonder of her words he stared at her with dazed eyes, while their meaning shook him slowly to his senses.
"Maria!" he called out sharply in the voice of one who speaks from a distance.
She met his appeal with a swift outward movement of her arms, and, bending over, laid her hands gently upon his head.
"Mine, too, Christopher—mine, too," she repeated, "for I take the blame of it, and I will share in the atonement. My dear, my dear, is love so slight a thing that it would share the joy and leave the sorrow—that it would take the good and reject the evil? Why, it is all mine! All! All! What you have been I was also; what I am to-day you will be. I have been yours since the first instant you looked upon me."
With a sob he caught her hands and crushed them in his own.
"Then this is love, Maria?"
"It has been love—always."