He did not answer her at once and she shivered fearfully in his arms. Then he kissed her brow gently.
"I do love you, Agnes," he said intensely. "I will answer for my own love if you can answer for yours. Are you the same Agnes that you were? My Agnes?"
"Will you believe me?"
"Yes."
"I could lie to you—God knows I would lie to you."
"I—I would rather you lied to me than to---"
"I know. Don't say it. George," as she put her hands to his face and whispered in all the fierceness of a desperate longing to convince him, "I am the same Agnes. I am your Agnes. I am! You do believe me?"
He crushed her close to his breast and then patted her shoulder as a father might have touched an erring child.
"That's all I ask of you," he said. She lay still and almost breathless for a long time.
At last she spoke: "It is not wholly his fault, George. I was to blame. I led him on. You understand?"