"Once."
"And I lost it?"
"You didn't want it."
She covered her face with her hands again.
"And you—did you ever love me?" he asked bitterly.
"Not then."
"Do you mean?" he paused, and then unsteadily: "Have you come back to your husband, Eva?"
"Not then—but now!"
Astry stood still; for a moment the fundamental forces of life seemed suspended. He was amazed. Then he took a step forward, but before he spoke Eva suddenly swayed and would have fallen but for his arms around her.
He lifted her and carried her up-stairs. She was unconscious and her head lay helpless, her pretty soft hair against his breast. He carried her across the hall and into her own room and laid her on the bed with a touch as tender as a woman's. The disdain and anger and bitterness that had been waging a battle in his soul receded before the wave of humanity, of pity, almost of tenderness, that suddenly submerged his being. Her helplessness, the appeal of her childish face, the evident grief and humiliation that she had suffered to tell him the truth, touched his heart. He summoned her maid and then went out softly and closed the door.