"But what shall I tell them?" he asked in despair. "I see some of them every day and they'll quiz my head off. They can't suspect the truth, of course, but—but—" he paused and his ruddy face turned a deep brick red. He had never mentioned Masters' name to her since he announced his impending departure, but he was desperate. "They'll think you're pining, that's what! That you won't go out because you take no interest in any one but Langdon Masters."
She was standing by the window with her back to him, looking down into the street. She turned and met his eyes squarely.
"That would be quite true," she said.
"You do not mean that!"
"I have never forgotten him for a moment and I never shall as long as I live." She averted her eyes from his pallid face but went on remorselessly. "If you had been merciful you would have let me die when I was so ill. But you showed me another way, and now you would take even that from me."
"Do—do you mean to say that you tried to drink yourself to death?"
"Yes, I mean that. And if you really cared for me you would let me do it now."
"That I'll never do," he cried violently. "I'll cure you and you'll get over this damned nonsense in time."
"I never shall get over it. Don't delude yourself for an instant."
He stared at her with a sickening sense of impotence—and despair. He thought she had never looked more beautiful. She wore a graceful wrapper of pale blue camel's hair and her long hair in two pendent braids. She was very white and she looked as cold and remote as the moon.