“Yes,” he said, looking into her steady grey eyes, “I am in Holland—because I cannot stay away—because I cannot live without you. I have pretended to myself and to everybody else that I come to The Hague because of the Malgamite; but it is not that. It is because you are here. Wherever you are I must be; wherever you go I must follow you. The world is not big enough for you to get away from me. It is so big that I feel I must always be near you—for fear something should happen to you—to watch over you and take care of you. You know what my life has been....”
She turned away with a little shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head. For a woman may read a man's life in his face—in the twinkling of an eye—as in an open book.
“All the world knows that....” he continued, with a sceptical laugh. “Is it not written ... in the society papers? But it has always been aboveboard—and harmless enough....”
Dorothy smiled as she looked out across the grey sea. He was, it appeared, telling her nothing that she did not know. For she was wise and shrewd—of that pure leaven of womankind which leaveneth all the rest. And she knew that a man must not be judged by his life—not even by outward appearance, upon which the world pins so much faith—but by that occasional glimpse of the soul of him, which may live on, pure through all impurity, or may be foul beneath the whitest covering.
“Of course,” he continued, “I have wasted my time horribly—I have never done any good in the world. But—great is the extenuating circumstance! I never knew what life was until I saw it ... in your eyes.”
Still she stood with her back half turned towards him, looking out across the sea. The sun had mastered the clouds and all the surface of the water glittered. A few boats on the horizon seemed to dream and sleep there. Beneath the dunes, the sand stretched away north and south in an unbroken plain. The wind whispered through the waving grass, and, far across the sands, the sea sang its eternal song. Dorothy and Cornish seemed to be alone in this world of sea and sand. So far as the eye could see, there were no signs of human life but the boats dreaming on the horizon.
“Are you quite sure?” said Dorothy, without turning her head.
“Of what...?”
“Of what you say.”
“Yes; I am quite sure.”