"Don't stop me now! Don't go away!" he entreated, motioning her back. "Ah! we are poor creatures at best! We go blindly past our happiness. Let us hark back, Lucy, and try to find the trail we missed!"
"We!" cried Madame.
"I."
Madame was profoundly stirred. His voice had not changed at all in all those years: just so had he murmured passionate words in the old vicarage garden. She must take care, or she would fall under the spell of it again—and that must not be. She must take care; harden her heart; put on a panoply of steel.
"I have been quite happy," she said at last, very defiantly.
"I know it," he answered, "and I am glad to know it."
"But I purchased my happiness dearly." She turned on him with bitter resentment. "You have never realised the suffering you inflicted on me!"
"I can imagine it," he answered, almost voicelessly.
"No, you cannot," she retorted. "Only those who have gone through it can imagine it. Ah! think of pride insulted; ideals smirched; faith trampled on; tenderness turned back on itself!"
"I know it all," he murmured.