"You left that photograph?" He spoke huskily.
She nodded.
"You left it there, in my poor house. I've cherished it there. It hasn't suffered. You wouldn't suffer. Will you live—and work—with me—there?"
"Oh!" She drew back. "How can you—Do you realize what you ask?"
"I don't ask it expecting to receive it. I know it's impossible—from your viewpoint. But—it's—all I have to ask—"
He broke off, fighting savagely with the desire to seize her in his arms that was all but overmastering him.
She moved away a step in her turn, standing, with down-bent head, the partial line of her profile, the curve of her neck and beautiful shoulder, presenting an even greater appeal to the devouring flame of his longing than her eyes had done. It seemed to him that he would give the heart out of his body even to press his lips upon that fair flesh just below the low-drooping masses of her hair, flesh exquisite as a child's in contrast with the dark locks above it. All the long months of his exile pressed upon him with mighty force to urge him to assuage his loneliness with this divine balm.
Suddenly she spoke, just above a whisper. "I wonder," she said, "if any woman ever humiliated herself—like this—to be so refused."
He answered that with swift, eager words: "It is the most womanly, the most wonderful thing, any woman could do for a man. I shall never forget it, or cease to honour you for it. I love you—love you—for it—ten thousand times more than I loved you before, if that can be. I must say it. I must put it into words that you and I can both remember, or I think my heart will burst. But—Helena—I have vowed this vow to my God. I have put my hand to this plow. I can't turn back—not even for you. No man, having done that, 'and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.' He isn't fit for the kingdoms of earth, either. He isn't fit for—hell!"
Very slowly she moved away from him, her head still drooping. At the door she did not pause and look back, actress-like, to try him with one more look. She went like a wounded thing. And at the sight, the wild impulse to rush after her and cry to her that nothing in the wide universe mattered, so that she should lift that head and lay it on his breast, gripped him and wrung him, till drops of moisture started out upon his forehead, and he turned sick. Then she was out of sight, and he stood grasping the back of a chair, fighting for control. This was a dinner-party—a dinner-party! Kind God in heaven! And he and she must go back to those other people and smile and talk, must somehow cover it all up. How was it conceivably to be done?