He moved away from her, as he had done once before.
"Anyway, it doesn't matter," he said. "I've killed him by the way I've been behaving to him all these months. I'm going away where I can't do any harm."
She desperately calmed herself, speaking very quietly.
"Listen, Martin. You haven't done him any harm. He's happier now than he's been for years. I know he is. And that doesn't touch us. You can't leave me now. Where you go I must go."
"No," he answered. "No, Maggie. I ought to have gone before. I knew it then, but I know it absolutely now. Everything I touch I hurt, so I mustn't touch anything I care for."
She put her hands out towards him; words had left her. She would have given her soul for words and she could say nothing.
She was surrounded with a hedge of fright and terror and she could not pass it.
He seemed to see then in her eyes her despair. For an instant he recognised her. Their eyes met for the first time; she felt that she was winning. She began eagerly to speak: "Listen, Martin dear. You can't do me any harm. You can only hurt me by leaving me. I've told you before. Just think of that and only that."
The door opened and Aunt Anne came in.
He turned to her very politely. "I beg your pardon for coming, Miss Cardinal," he said. "I know what you must think of me, but it's all right. I've only come to say good-bye to Maggie. It's all right. Neither you nor Maggie will be bothered with me again."