"Nora!" he repeated, and beneath the horror there rang a painful joy.
She stopped and looked him sternly in the face.
"Do not misunderstand me, Robert. I did not love you. Then I loved my husband, and I do not believe you really came between us. There were other things, and you were only the instrument that helped me to escape from a life that was driving me mad. But, because of all that had been between us and that which might so easily have been, I ought never to have allowed you a place in my life. It was wrong, and the punishment is just this—that now our friendship is an impossibility."
He walked on as though he could not bear to listen to her.
"I know, I know!" he said, impatient with pain. "I know it is true. I feel no friendship for you—only an immense love which has not learnt to be selfless. But it will come; it shall come. I swear it. And when it comes—will you never be able to trust me?"
"I don't know," she said listlessly.
"Do not punish me because I have been honest and confessed what I might have kept hidden."
"I should have known sooner or later," she answered.
They had taken the village path, and already the spire of the church rising above the clustering houses warned them that their moments together were numbered. As though by mutual consent, they stopped and stood silent, avoiding each other's eyes.
"I want you to know one thing," he said at last. "Whatever happens, I shall love you all my life, and that if you need me I shall prove worthy of your trust. Promise me you will turn to me as you would to a friend. Don't take that hope from me!"