"God!" whispered Blake again, not hearing her, piecing his thoughts together as a waking man tries to piece a dream. 'God!'
The reiteration tortured her. She suddenly caught his arm, forcing him into contact with her. "Do not speak to yourself!" she cried. "Speak to me! Say all you think! Hate me! Hate me!"
Then at last he broke through the confusion of his mind, startling her as such men will always startle women by their innate singleness of thought.
"Hate you?" he said. "Why, in God's name, should I hate you?"
"Because it is right and just."
"That I should hate you, because I have been a fool? I do not see that."
"But, Ned!" she cried; then, suddenly, at its sharpest, her voice broke; she threw herself upon her knees beside the chair and sobbed.
And then it was that Blake showed himself. Kneeling down beside her, he put both arms about the boyish figure and, holding it close, poured forth—not questions, not reproaches, not protestations—but a stream of compassion.
"Poor child! Poor child! Poor child! What a fool I've been! What a brute I've been!"
But Maxine sobbed passionately, shrinking away from him, as though his touch were pain.