“It’s incredible,” she said, almost in a whisper. “It’s incredible. How could you do such a thing and then endure the thought of it?”
“I haven’t endured the thought of it. It’s been torture; and now he wants it to go on, wants me to keep on—to hide it for your sake. But I see how you feel!”
She swept him a look in which scorn and horror mingled with a kind of fear.
“I don’t see how I could feel any other way! I—why, think of it, they’ve made a hero of you; you were going in his place to the south pole. I’ve—I’ve wanted you to go—I was so proud of you! But now—I don’t see how you could have even thought of going back. It—it would have driven me mad, if I’d done what—you did!”
He met her wild reproach with a hard look of endurance.
“It was driving me mad. I haven’t slept, you know that. But, Diane”—his voice suddenly thrilled with passion—“for God’s sake don’t look at me like that—I love you!”
“Oh!”
It was a cry not so much of surprise as of dismay—dismay that he should dare, being the craven that he admitted he was, to speak of love to her. It was unmistakable, he could not misunderstand it; her tone and her look destroyed his last hope. He recalled Overton’s insult—“the woman you dared to marry”—and he covered his face with his hands.
Diane stood looking at him, outraged and terrified by his confession. All her natural integrity in arms, she had no pity for him. Then, as he did not speak again or even look up, she turned slowly and walked to the door of her own room.
There she paused again, turned, looked at him with the same pitiless expression, and, unmoved by his stricken attitude, his evident repentance, she went in, shut the door behind her, and bolted it with hands that not only shook with dismay, but almost with fear.