“I love you.”
Suddenly they clung together. And all the time his mind whirled against itself. How in God’s name, at his time of life, could any woman be doing this to him! Perhaps even now she was tricking him for a way out for herself. But he felt her shivering against him, felt her lips, and knew that was not true. For, together with her love for him, he felt an overwhelming despair in her that frightened him—as though she fully intended to go through with her mad confession. It was mad to have admitted anything! It was going to make his efforts to save her almost hopeless.
“We mustn’t,” he said huskily, trying to hold her off and only holding her closer. “We have other things to think of. It’s desperate. They’re waiting for us. In the first place you must retract whatever you have said, and we’ll try to clear you in the courts. Failing that, we’ll make a get-away—Timbuctu or the Gold Coast, it makes no difference to me. I’m as tired of the game as you are.”
“No—no—no,” she protested. “I won’t let you do that, ever. Oh, my dear, I didn’t mean to tell you how much I cared. Truly I didn’t. I only meant to say good-bye to you. I couldn’t deny myself that. I don’t understand how this other happened. I suppose because we both cared. I hadn’t an idea you did. You have been considerate in some ways, yes, but not really kind. But now I see what it’s been for you. You have been fighting it too, as I have. How cruel to know at the very moment of separation. For it is good-bye. It can’t be anything else, for either of us. Please, no—don’t, don’t, don’t kiss me. I can’t bear it.”
“Be still. We are going to get you off, dear heart. You must be brave, that’s all; and help me.”
“No. I am not going to let you try to get me off. We have you to think of now. Not me any longer. I am beyond being worried about. I never expected to escape the fruits of my sins as long as I have. That I happen to die innocent is a queer twist of fate, nothing more. I would have died really guilty of something within a month—a year. Who knows? And I’ve put up a good battle, as battles go in this world. I have just got around to surrender. I’m through. So it’s fare thee well, dear, forever and ever, instead of—of ‘they lived—.’” Her voice broke.
“Stop it!” He shook her fiercely. “Pull yourself together, Nadia. For God’s sake, don’t stand here talking sentimental nonsense. What we have to do is plan. The enemy is outside that door; can’t you realize that? We’ll have to have every ounce of our wits about us to fend them off. What did you admit? Tell me that.”
“Everything. Every murder. What was the point of haggling over an extra one or two. And, what’s more, I’m sticking to it, darling.” She drew a deep breath. “It’s the only solution. Believe me, it is. Nothing in the wide world, including death twenty times over, could make me let you undertake your wild scheme for us. My dear, you are a great man, a strong one, an esteemed one. I am a wretched little criminal—clever, yes, but wretched all the same. Do you think loving you, worshiping you as I do, I could dream of letting you face downright ruin for my sake? It isn’t to be thought of.”
Nadia stood back and lifted her face to his. Her eyes were wide open, lucid, adoring, and, to him, the mirrors of love and integrity. Then, as she gazed at him, the tears, the first he had ever seen her shed, and he had thought her incapable of tears, welled up and fell quietly across her cheeks.
“I love you, don’t you understand that? Don’t you understand what love means? I couldn’t let you hurt yourself for me. The very fact of my love for you makes it absolutely imperative I never retract a word I have said to them. For my confession puts me out of harm’s way and so puts temptation out of yours.” Her little smile came, tender now.