"You are doing yourself harm with all this," he said gently again. "And there is really no occasion for it, that I can see."
Her silent extremity of grief—her utter discomfiture was pitiful to look upon. It touched him profoundly, for he penetrated the meaning of it. She was overwhelmed with the knowledge of the sacrifice he had made for her—and with pity for herself.
All he could do was to wait quietly till the feeling, roused afresh by his presence, had spent itself.
"Oh, I did not know," she whispered at last, through the shielding hands. "I did not know you would do that.... You have ruined yourself.... You should have let them hang me."
And there and then, on the spur of the moment, he leaped up a height which he had not even sighted a second before.
He had, by the sacrifice of his prospects, saved her from the legal consequences of her act. That was irrevocably past and done with, and he must pay the price. But she was paying a double due—remorse for what she herself had done, bitter sorrow at the ruinous price he had paid for her safety.
He had saved her life. Why not save her the rest?—her peace of mind, all her possibilities of future happiness.
In any case it would make no difference to him. For her it might mean all the difference between darkness and light for the rest of her life. And she looked pitifully helpless and hopeless as she lay there sobbing convulsively in the big chair.
He saw the possibility in a flash and gripped it.
"Hang you? Why on earth should anyone want to hang you?" he asked, with all the natural surprise he could put into it.