“I’m a counterfeiter––I’ve been in prison––I’ve–––” but here Rivers paused, struck at last by the face opposite him. It was awakening; it flushed, quivered, and the eyes darkened and widened. What was happening was this––Larry was setting Mary-Clare free in ways that he could not realize. Every merciless blow he struck was rending a fetter apart. He was making it possible for the woman, close to him physically, 214 to regard him at last as––a man; not a husband that mistaken loyalty must shield and suffer for. He was placing her among the safe and decent people, permitting her at last to justify her instincts, to trust her own ideals.
And from that vantage ground of spiritual freedom, released from all false ties of contract and promise, Mary-Clare looked at Larry with divine pity in her eyes. She seemed to see the veiled form of his mother beside him––they were like two outcasts defiantly accusing her, but toward whom she could well afford to feel merciful.
“Don’t, Larry”––Mary-Clare spoke at last and there were tears in her eyes––“please don’t. You’ve said enough.”
She felt as though she were looking at the dying face of a suicide.
“Yes, I think I have said enough about myself except this: I wrote all those letters you––you had. Not one was my father’s––they were counterfeits––there are more ways than one of––of getting what you want.”
Again Mary-Clare shuddered and sank into the dull state of amazement. She had to think this over; go slowly. She looked at Larry, but she was not listening. At last she asked wonderingly:
“You mean––that he did not want me to marry you? And that last night––he did not say––what you said you understood?”
Larry laughed––but it was not the old assured laugh of brutality––he had stripped himself so bare that at last he was aware of his own nakedness.
“Oh!” The one word was like a blighting shaft that killed all that was left to kill.
Larry put forth a pitiful defence.