She laid an imploring hand on his arm, and at the touch of her his iron composure shook a little. For a moment the hardness in his eyes was wiped out by a look of intolerable pain. Then, with a quiet, inexorable movement he released himself from her straining clasp.
“There’s no question of mercy,” he said inflexibly. “I’m not judging you, or punishing you. It’s simply that I can’t marry you. . . . You must see that June’s death—my sister’s death—lies at your door.”
“No,” she said. “No. I suppose you can’t marry me—now.”
Her breath came in short, painful gasps. Her face seemed to have grown smaller—shrunk. There was a pinched look about the nostrils and every drop of blood had drained away, leaving even her lips a curious greyish-white. She leaned forward, swaying a little.
“I suppose,” she said in a clear, dry voice, “you don’t even love me any more?”
His hands clenched and he took a sudden impetuous step towards her.
“Not love you?” he said. And at last the man’s own agony broke through his enforced calm, shaking his voice so that it was hoarse and terrible. “Not love you? I love you now as I loved you the day I first saw you. God in heaven! Did you think love could be killed so easily? Does it die—just because it’s forbidden by every decent instinct that a man possesses? If so, nine-tenths of us would find the world an easier place to live in!”
“And there is—no forgiveness, Michael?” The lovely grief-wrung face was uplifted to his beseechingly.
“Don’t ask me!” he said hoarsely. “You know there can be none.”
He turned and strode to the door. He did not look back even when his name tore itself like a cry between her lips. The next moment the sound of a door’s closing came dully to her ears.