She gripped his arm a little tighter. She was quivering from head to foot. "We could do it between us," she breathed again. "Wouldn't it be worth it? Oh, wouldn't it be worth it?"
But Burke spoke no word. He sat rigid, looking at her.
A feeling of coldness ran through her—such a feeling as she had experienced on her wedding-day under the skeleton-tree, the chill that comes from the heart of a storm. Slowly she relaxed her hold upon him. Her tears were gone, but she felt choked, unlike herself, curiously impotent.
"Shall we go back?" she said.
She made as if she would rise, but he stayed her with a gesture, and her weakness held her passive.
"So you have forgiven him!" he said.
His tone was curt. He almost flung the words.
She braced herself, instinctively aware of coming strain. But she answered him gently. "You can't be angry with a person when you are desperately sorry for him."
"I see. And you hold me in a great measure responsible for his fall? I am to make good, am I?"
He did not raise his voice, but there was something in it that made her quail. She looked up at him in swift distress.