She drew more closely into the shelter of his arms and drew his lips down to hers.
"Yes—but we shall make a new beginning——And then," she went on, after a moment, "I saw Olga and cut her. I hadn't meant to—but I couldn't help it. The sight of her turned me to ice. And Pierre de Folligny—" She stopped again, her brows tangling. "That man! He remembered me. He presumed. He was odious. I had the butler show him the door. I—I wasn't very wise, I think. But I couldn't, Philidor,—I simply couldn't temporize with a man of his caliber."
"D—n him!" said Markham.
"He told—I think—of Olga did—"
"It was De Folligny," he groaned. "But I couldn't do anything. That would have made things worse."
"Oh, yes—and then the play—that dreadful play! That was Olga's doing. I was there, Philidor, at Rood's Knoll. I saw it all. Listened in terror to every word of the dreadful sacrilege. It was sacrilege!—to see my love and yours pictured the dreadful thing that that love was. I got out somehow. They were talking of me—lightly. I heard them; as they talked of—of other women who do not know right from wrong—as they would have talked of that dreadful Frenchwoman who—who was killed."
She was sobbing gently on his shoulder, her slender body quivering and drawing closer. "Oh, I have paid—paid in full for my fault—"
He soothed her, but she started back, holding him at arm's length, her eyes the more lovely through their tears, "But I regret nothing. I would suffer more, if I might, to know what I know. I have learned the meaning of life, Philidor. I bless my pain for the new meaning it has given my joy. I bless your pain even, dear, for the new meaning it has given your unselfishness. You thought only of me, of my happiness when I had paid you only misery."
"There shall be no more pain," he murmured. "There is no room for it.
Joy shall crowd it out."
"Will you forgive me?" she asked.