“You can’t forgive him?”
“I can’t forgive myself. I have no hard feeling against him. But he showed me myself.” Her face burned.
“Dear Mrs. Collingwood, don’t feel that way. Martin did not mean what he said.”
She lifted her heavy eyes. “Wasn’t it true?”
“No, it wasn’t; or, at least, the coloring he gave it wasn’t true. It wouldn’t be true unless—” he paused and broke off confused.
“Unless what?”
“You know.” He looked at her steadily.
“I don’t know.”
“Unless you leave him. That’s what they do; that’s what I did when I got tired. But if you stay by what you promised, no human being can think of you with less than respect. It isn’t the game, it’s the way you play the game that counts.” His voice trembled with emotion.
Charlotte sat very still, her cheeks burning. It seemed incomprehensible that she should be sitting there, listening to John Kingsnorth’s views on ethics. Where had she failed? What gradual disintegration had taken place in her, that she should be willing, nay, eager, to listen to moral advice from a man whose very presence had once seemed polluting?