They swayed toward each other in the golden mist, he holding her hands in a grip that thrilled with passionate hope.
“Diane, my love!” he cried.
If she heard him, she did not answer, though she closed her eyes and her lips moved. He seemed to feel, through the impalpable veil between their two souls, that hers was struggling away from his and trying to rise by its own agony to a supreme height of renunciation. But he would not let her go.
“Then—then, if you cared once, you care—you must care again. I can’t have you speak as you did just now—about there being no happiness for you. I can’t bear that, for I’d give all that I have, the best that’s in me, to make you happy. Speak to me! It’s not wrong—I know what you think, but it’s not wrong if you’re going to begin life over again. It’s not wrong for me to try to win you again, to make you happy!”
With a sudden effort she dragged her hands from his and moved on blindly, hurrying away from him.
“Don’t!” she sobbed. “Don’t make it worse. It’s all wrong; I know it; I see it; I—I left him because——”
He had caught up with her now and walked beside her, as pale as she was.
“Because what? Tell me; I must know; I have a right to know!”
She staggered again; her hand going to her throat with a strange little gesture, as if she felt strangled.
“Because I loved you! I see it now—and it’s wicked. I hadn’t any right to judge him, for I was worse than he was. It’s one of those things that make it wrong, Simon—that make it wrong even to have cared once!”