“I have thought,” she said,—“I have tried—”
She got up abruptly from her seat and turned her back on him and walked slowly down the long room, and stood by the fireplace with her elbow on the mantel and her face dropped on her hand. He remained seated where he was, and leaning forward, his hands between his knees, watched her with interest. She made a curiously striking and graceful picture, standing there with her half-averted face, the warm lamp-light falling on her black-robed figure. There was a restrained yet dramatic appeal in her attitude that touched him, and in the long drooping line of neck and shoulder as it was turned towards him was a suggestion of weakness that commended itself to his masculine mind. She looked lonely, and sad, he considered.
“I know what you thought,” he said. “I know what you tried to do. It was praiseworthy in many respects... But it was too late. If you would fashion the clay into a goodly shape you should hasten to do so while it is pliable. When once it is set you can only break it.”
“You always make me feel,” she said, without changing her position, “that I am directly responsible for the waste of your life.”
“I don’t admit that my life stands for waste,” he replied coldly.
She lifted her face, and turning it slightly looked steadily in his direction.
“Perhaps,” she said, “I am not qualified to judge. I only judge from what I see—from what I know you might have done if only you had willed it. And now—”
She looked away from him, and once more dropped her face upon her hand.
“Hugh,” she said, and her voice was so low as to be scarcely louder than a whisper, “I asked you to come here to-night, because I felt that there was much in the past on my side that needed your forgiveness. I was hard... I see that now... When you wanted sympathy I failed you. And things happened to separate us. Perhaps it was less your fault than I imagined. But—there are certain things a woman finds it difficult to pardon.”
“I have never blamed you,” he interposed harshly.