"And yet——Humphrey, she wasn't——?"
"I was mad. She was a lady. It wasn't love; I didn't love her at all.... If you were a man, you'd understand. I sinned with my body, but my mind—she never had that ...it was with you—with you. It was the animal in me—how can I explain to an angel?"
Presently she said:
"Does a woman ever learn to understand a man? She gives him her life; yet to the end——They begin differently.... He has known everything before he comes to her, and she has known nothing. She's told that it doesn't matter, that it's right. She doesn't believe it in her heart —the more she loves him, the less she believes it—but she tries to persuade herself she believes it. It's wrong—wrong! To him she's a new girl, and to her he is a new world. How can marriage be the same thing to both. You didn't love her, but you gave yourself to her. Could a husband think less of his wife's sin for a reason like that?"
Kent rose, and stood beside her dumbly. Some glimmer of her point of view reached him and confused him by its strangeness.
"I'll do whatever you want. What can I say?"
"Help me to forget," she said in a low voice. "Will you help me to forget?"
"You'll let me come to you?"
"Give me a few days—wait a few days. Only I can't be your wife again, Humphrey, all at once—I can't.... Ah, don't think me unforgiving; it isn't that. Come to me, if you will, and work, and we'll be good friends together. Don't be afraid, I won't make it bad for you, I promise—I'll never remind you even by a look.... Are the terms too hard?"
"You're merciful."