“You must not do that, Barry.”
“Then I’ll come later.”
“No, Barry. I would only destroy your peace of mind and all your opportunities. Some day, very soon I hope, this dreadful trouble will be over, and then you’ll get back into the old life again, and be happy.”
“I shall never be happy without you.”
“Oh, yes, you will. You will forget me. You must forget me. I have been a traitor to you. I have been willing to sacrifice you to satisfy a passion for revenge. I have used you as a mere instrument to carry out my desires. I can atone for my wickedness only in one way: by compelling you to blot me out of your memory.”
Barry looked at her in dumb incredulity. He had no conception of what lay in her mind, he could not fathom the meaning of the words she spoke to him. After a moment he said:
“I don’t know anything about it, Mary. I don’t understand it at all. I only know that if you go away and leave me—like that, it will break my heart.”
She reached across the table and took both his hands in hers, as she had done once in her office in the Potter Building, and she looked into his eyes with a look vastly more tender and confident than she had given him on that day.
“Barry,” she said, “you believe in me?”
“With all my heart.”