“No,” he said hurriedly, “no! Before God—no!” His voice changed. “But—. I think—I have been indiscreet. I knew little—I grasped too hastily....”
He paused. He was ashamed of this avowal. “There is one thing that makes up for all. I have known you. Across this gulf of time I have come to you. The rest is done. It is done. With you, too, it has been something more—or something less—”
He paused with his face searching hers, and without clamoured the unheeded message that the aeroplanes were rising into the sky of Amiens.
She put her hand to her throat, and her lips were white. She stared before her as if she saw some horrible possibility. Suddenly her features changed. “Oh, but I have been honest!” she cried, and then, “Have I been honest? I loved the world and freedom, I hated cruelty and oppression. Surely it was that.”
“Yes,” he said, “yes. And we have done what it lay in us to do. We have given our message, our message! We have started Armageddon! But now—. Now that we have, it may be our last hour, together, now that all these greater things are done....”
He stopped. She sat in silence. Her face was a white riddle.
For a moment they heeded nothing of a sudden stir outside, a running to and fro, and cries. Then Helen started to an attitude of tense attention. “It is—,” she cried and stood up, speechless, incredulous, triumphant. And Graham, too, heard. Metallic voices were shouting “Victory!” Yes it was “Victory!” He stood up also with the light of a desperate hope in his eyes.
Bursting through the curtains appeared the man in yellow, startled and dishevelled with excitement. “Victory,” he cried, “victory! The people are winning. Ostrog’s people have collapsed.”
She rose. “Victory?” And her voice was hoarse and faint.
“What do you mean?” asked Graham. “Tell me! What?”