She was silent a moment, and then after a glance at the dining-room door, went on with more restraint.
“Pity and contempt are hardly the kind of ingredients that love can live on. They’ve poisoned mine. It’s dead. I don’t want to see you again,” she finished coldly—“ever. I hope you understand.”
He bowed his head and for a moment made no reply.
“I asked——” he said slowly, “I hoped—that you would be willin’ to trust me—that you’d wait until I was able to speak to you—to explain the—the things you do not understand.”
“Unfortunately,” she put in distinctly, “there is nothing that I do not understand. I know—God help you!—what you are. I have done what I can to save you from the fate you’re courting—and I shall still do so, for the sake of—of what once was—was between us. But I do not want to see you again. I have put you out of my life—completely—as though you never had been in it. And now,” she rose, “will you let me go?”
“One moment, please,” he said calmly. “You found those papers last night?”
“Yes,” she said coolly. “And if I did?”
He seemed to breathe more freely.
“I have nothing to say,” he muttered.