She became very still. He touched her arm and said heavily: "Come away, come away."
She pointed to the words she had read. "I could not help but see, and now I know what this must mean to you."
"Thee must go at once," he urged. "Thee should not have come. Thee was safe—none knew. A few hours and it would all have been far behind. We might never have met again."
Suddenly she gave a low, hysterical laugh. "You think you hide the real thing from me. I know I'm ignorant and selfish and feeble-minded, but I can see farther than you think. You want to tell the truth about—about it, because you are honest and hate hiding things, because you want to be punished, and so pay the price. Oh, I can understand! If it were not for me you would not. . . . " With a sudden wild impulse she got to her feet. "And you shall not," she cried. "I will not have it." Colour came rushing to her cheeks.
"I will not have it. I will not put myself so much in your debt. I will not demand so much of you. I will face it all. I will stand alone."
There was a touch of indignation in her voice. Somehow she seemed moved to anger against him. Her hands were clasped at her side rigidly, her pulses throbbing. He stood looking at her fixedly, as though trying to realise her. His silence agitated her still further, and she spoke excitedly:
"I could have, would have, killed him myself without a moment's regret. He had planned, planned—ah, God, can you not see it all! I would have taken his life without a thought. I was mad to go upon such an adventure, but I meant no ill. I had not one thought that I could not have cried out from the housetops, and he had in his heart—he had what you saw. But you repent that you killed him—by accident, it was by accident. Do you realise how many times others have been trapped by him as was I? Do you not see what he was—as I see now? Did he not say as much to me before you came, when I was dumb with terror? Did he not make me understand what his whole life had been? Did I not see in a flash the women whose lives he had spoiled and killed? Would I have had pity? Would I have had remorse? No, no, no! I was frightened when it was done, I was horrified, but I was not sorry; and I am not sorry. It was to be. It was thetrue end to his vileness. Ah!"
She shuddered, and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then went on: "I can never forgive myself for going to the Palace with him. I was mad for experience, for mystery; I wanted more than the ordinary share of knowledge. I wanted to probe things. Yet I meant no wrong. I thought then nothing of which I shall ever be ashamed. But I shall always be ashamed because I knew him, because he thought that I—oh, if I were a man, I should be glad that I had killed him, for the sake of all honest women!"
He remained silent. His look was not upon her, he seemed lost in a dream; but his face was fixed in trouble.
She misunderstood his silence. "You had the courage, the impulse to—to do it," she said keenly; "you have not the courage to justify it. I will not have it so.