"Charity! I don't like that word."
"It is charity, Moira. I don't deserve it."
The words were casual but they seemed to illumine the path ahead, for she broke out impetuously.
"I didn't think you did—I pitied you—over there—for what you had been and almost if not quite loathed you, for the hold you seemed to have on father. I don't know what the secret was, or how much he owed you, but I know that he was miserable. I think I must have been hating you a great deal, Harry dear—and yet I married you."
"Why did you?" he muttered. "I had no right to ask—even a war marriage."
"God knows," she said with a quick gasp as she bowed her head, "you had made good at the Camp. I think it was the regimental band at Yaphank that brought me around. And then you seemed so pathetic and wishful, I got to thinking you might be killed. Father wanted it. And so——" she paused and sighed deeply. "Well—I did it.... It was the most that I could give—for Liberty...."
She raised her head proudly, and stared into the glowing embers.
"For Liberty—you gave your own freedom——" he murmured.
"It was mad—Quixotic——" she broke in again, "a horrible sacrilege. I did not love, could not honor, had no intention of obeying you...." She stopped suddenly, and hid her face in her hands. He thought that she was in tears but he did not dare to touch her, though he leaned toward her, his fingers groping. Presently she took her hands down and threw them out in a wild gesture. "It is merciless—what I am saying to you—but you let loose the floodgates and I had to speak."
He leaned closer and laid his fingers over hers.