"Why indeed?" The colonel's voice was sad. "I suppose the martyrs were glad when the waiting was over, and their turn came to be torn to pieces."
He felt that he was annihilated, and he suffered keenly in his defeat, for he had been determined to save her at all risks. She was making even risk impossible. If she went straight to her husband and took him back, and protected him, as she called it, what could any one do? It was a hopeless case. Wimpole's anger against Harmon slowly subsided, and above it rose his pity for the woman who was giving all the life she still had left for the sake of her marriage vow, who was ready, and almost eager, to go back to a state full of horror in the past, and of danger in the future, because she had once solemnly promised to be Henry Harmon's wife, and could not find in all the cruel years a reason for taking back her word. He bowed his head, and he knew that there was something higher in her than he had ever dreamt in his own honourable life, for it was something that clung to its belief, against all suggestion or claim of justice for itself.
It was not only pity. A despair for her crept nearer and grew upon him every moment. Though he had seen her rarely, he had felt nearer to her since Harmon had been mad, and now he was to be further from her than ever before. He would probably not go so far as she feared, and would be willing to enter her husband's house for her sake, and in the hope of being useful to her. But he could never be so near to her again as he was now, and his last chance of protecting her had vanished before her unchangeable resolution. He would almost rather have known that she was going to her death, than see her return to Harmon. He made one more attempt to influence her. He did it roughly, but his voice shook a little.
"It seems to me," he said, "that if I were a woman, I should be too proud to go back to a man who had struck me."
Helen moved and stood upright, trying to look into his face clearly in the dimness as she spoke.
"Then you think I am not proud?"
He could see her white features and dark eyes, and he guessed her expression.
"You are not proud for yourself," he answered rather stubbornly. "If you were, you could not do this."
She turned from him again, and looked down at the black water.
"I am prouder than you think," she said. "That does not make it easier."