Pierson's lips trembled.
“You call it a priest's view; I think it is only the view of a man of honour.”
Fort reddened. “That's for my conscience,” he said stubbornly. “I can't tell you, and I'm not going to, how things began. I was a fool. But I did my best, and I know that Leila doesn't think I'm bound. If she had, she would never have gone. When there's no feeling—there never was real feeling on my side—and when there's this terribly real feeling for Noel, which I never sought, which I tried to keep down, which I ran away from—”
“Did you?”
“Yes. To go on with the other was foul. I should have thought you might have seen that, sir; but I did go on with it. It was Leila who made an end.”
“Leila behaved nobly, I think.”
“She was splendid; but that doesn't make me a brute.”.
Pierson turned away to the window, whence he must see Noel.
“It is repugnant to me,” he said. “Is there never to be any purity in her life?”
“Is there never to be any life for her? At your rate, sir, there will be none. I'm no worse than other men, and I love her more than they could.”