"Now the time has come?"
"Yes." She rubbed her hands nervously one over the other. "I am in great straits."
"Is the way growing dark or only hard?"
"Oh, hard—hard!" she moaned, rocking a little backward and forward.
She looked up in his face and saw her trouble was guessed. When the will to help and the powerlessness meet upon a face that regards us tenderly we read our fate written there in letters of fire.
"Yes," she went on, as though he had spoken. "I am a Catholic: I am a divorced woman whose husband lives, and I am in love—in love with all my heart, and soul, and strength."
"The man? Is he free?" Vernon asked, perhaps for something to say.
"Yes. I thank God, whose captive I am, that he at least is free."
"He understands your peculiar position?"
"He understands nothing."