"Once I misunderstood. I won't make the same mistake again. It was I who found you there, parching in the desert, and taught you how to grow—who showed you that life was something more than the barren waste you had found it. Won't you forgive me? I was a fool—and worse. Look up at me, Camilla, dear. You were mine out there before you were his. At least a half of what Jeff Wray has stolen from me—your spiritual side——"
At the sound of her husband's name she raised her head and looked up at him in a daze. He caught her again madly, and his lips even brushed her cheek, but she started from his arms and sped the length of the room away from him.
"Camilla!"
"No, no. You must not." She stood facing him, wildly pleading. "Don't come near me, Cort. Is this the way you are going to try to forget—the way you will teach me to forget?"
"I didn't know then—I want you, Camilla——"
As he came forward she retreated to the door of the library and put her hand on the knob. She did not hear the soft patter of feet on the other side.
"Then I must go," she said decisively.
He stopped, looked at her blankly, then turned away.
"I suppose you're right," he said quietly. "Forgive me. I had almost forgotten."
He slowly paced the room away from her and, his head in his hands, sank in a distant chair. He heard her sharp sigh and the sound of her footsteps as she gathered courage and came forward. But he did not move, and listened with the dull ears of a broken man from whom all hope has departed.