“Antoine——” Her voice had grown very gentle.
He swung round on her.
“And I can’t undo it!” he exclaimed desperately. “I can’t undo it! . . . Magda, will you believe me—will you try to believe that, if my life could undo the harm I’ve done, I’d give it gladly?”
“I believe you would, Antoine,” she replied simply.
With a stifled exclamation he turned away and, dropping into a chair, leaned his arms on the table and hid his face. Once, twice she heard the sound of a man’s hard-drawn sob, and the dry agony of it wrung her heart. All that was sweet and compassionate in her—the potential mother that lies in every woman—responded to his need. She ran to him and, kneeling at his side, laid a kind little hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t Antoine!” she said pitifully. “Ah, don’t, my dear!”
He caught the hand and held it against his cheek.
“It’s unforgivable!” he muttered.
“No, no. I do forgive you.”
“You can’t forgive! . . . Impossible!”