CHAPTER IX
GRATITUDE OF MISS MARJORIE POOLE
As the man to whom she had been engaged came into the room, Marjorie rose to meet him. She was not embarrassed, the hour and occasion were too serious for that, and she herself was too broken down for any emotions save those that were intensely real and came from an anguished heart. She went up to him, all pale and drooping, and took him by the hand.
"Thank you, William," she said in a low voice, and that was all.
But in her words Gouldesbrough realized all that she was powerless to say. He heard, with an inward thrill and leap of the pulses, an immense respect for him, which, even in the days of their engagement, he had never heard.
Always, Marjorie had reverenced his attainments, never had she seemed to be so near to him as a man as now.
He looked straight into her eyes, nor did his own flinch from her direct and agonized gaze. The frightful power of his dominating will, the horrible strength of his desire, the intensity of his purpose, enabled him to face her look without a sign of tremor.
He, this man with a marvellous intellect and a soul unutterably stained by the most merciless perfidy, was yet able to look back at her with a kind, sorrowful, and touching glance.
Gouldesbrough wore no metal helmet which should make the horror of his thoughts and knowledge plain for Marjorie to see. The man who had committed a crime as foul and sinister as ever crime was yet, the man who was responsible for the pale face of the girl he loved, the drooping form, the tearful eyes, yet smiled back at her with a mask of patient resignation, deference, and chivalry.
"I am so glad you've come, William," Lady Poole said; "and I'm sure, distressing as all these circumstances are, we cannot thank you enough for what you have done and are doing. No one else in your position would have done so much. And on Marjorie's behalf and on my own I thank you with a full heart."