"Don't ask me about that; I can't think. All I know is that if you had asked me to do anything in the world, I think I'd have said yes."
"For me?"
"Yes, for you. It's the truth. It's all out, at last! There's the whole story now of John Rawn—all of it, in black and white! Here's all my story—to you. You must have known—"
"Yes," she nodded; "of course. That was why, I said, that I've evaded you so long. It was very hard to do, Charley; a hundred times I've been on the point of sending for you. But I didn't."
"I'm glad, too," he said simply, seeing it was to be soul facing soul, between them now. "I've missed you. I've never passed such days in my life as I have here. There's Grace hating me, you ought to hate me—I ought to hate you! Oh, Rawn, man! Where would you have stopped, to get money, to get power? Oh, excellent!—to set your wife as a trap for another man! But it worked! It could have been done!" He looked her frankly in the face as he finished. "I love you, Virginia," he said simply. "I suppose I have all along. It's cheap, after all—at this price. But for all this, I never could have told you.
"But one thing I will say,"—the unhappy young man added, after a long time; "it's the one thing I can claim for an excuse. My price was love for you, and good love. It was the whole love of man for woman—I never knew before what that meant! It wasn't for money, but for you. That great, mysterious second current—what you yourself said was the one vast power of all the universe—that belonged to everybody—love—love—I thought that belonged to me, too. I can't see even now where that is wrong. I can't think, I don't know. If it is wrong, then I've been wrong. We're down in the mire together! I dragged you there. And once I dreamed of doing something to lift people up—that was why I mutinied and tore up the motors. And I had my own selfish price.... I can never lift up my head again. But I love you!"
VIII
She looked at him, her lips parted, her bosom agitated now, her eyes large, her color slowly increasing. "You must not!—Stop, we must think! Charley—"
"But why didn't you?" he demanded fiercely. "Why didn't you finish your work as you promised?"
"I never promised. I didn't finish it—because I knew I could. I told you—it was—Charley—yes—it was—love!"