She leaned against him, glad to feel the straining clasp of his arms about her—to rest once more in her place against his heart.
“Dearest of all,” she said tremulously, “there is no question of forgiveness between us two. There never will be. We’re just—both of us—struggling in the dark, and there’s only duty”—brokenly—“only duty to hold to.”
They stood together in silence, comforted just a little by the mere human touch of each other in this communion of sorrow which had so suddenly come upon them, yet knowing in their hearts that this was the very comfort that must for ever be denied them in the lonely future.
At last Jean raised her head from its resting-place and her eyes searched Blaise’s face, asking the question she could no longer bring herself to put in words. He met their gaze. “Jean, is it your wish I do this thing—take Nesta back?” He felt a shudder run through her frame. Twice she tried ineffectually to answer. At last she forced her dry lips to utter an affirmative.
“So be it.”
His answer sounded in her ears like the knell to the whole meaning of life. The future was settled. Henceforth their lives must lie apart.
“So be it,” said Blaise. “She shall come back and take her place again at Staple.”
Jean clung to him a little closer.
“Blaise, beloved—I know the harder part will be yours. But mine won’t be easy, dear. I shall go to Charnwood to be with Claire at once—to-morrow—and it won’t be easy, when I see in an evening the lights twinkle up at Staple, to know that you two are within, shut in from the world together, while I’m outside—always outside your life and your love.”
“You’ll never be outside my love,” he said swiftly. “That’s yours, now and forever. And no other woman shall rob you of one jot or tittle of it, were she my wife twenty times over. I will bring Nesta back to Staple, and she shall bear my name and live as my wife in the eyes of the world. But my love—that is yours, utterly and entirely. Yours and no other’s.”