She turned to interrupt him but he held up a protesting hand. "Let me finish. I know my love's hideous to you, but, none the less, I love you for your sweetness, your justice, your kindness, and at last a spark of generosity has been born in my own heart. I've been a good deal of a scoundrel, Rachel; I can plead no decent excuse, but there's enough manhood in me to feel that I've got to set you free."
A sudden hope, keen as joy, leaped in her heart for an instant, only to pass into eclipse. "It's impossible without ruining Eva. I did it myself, I dreaded the public scandal for her; it's just as much my fault, in a way, as yours."
"There are ways that involve but little scandal."
Rachel sat looking at the fire. Her heart cried out again; she desired happiness as fiercely as the most unreasoning child of circumstance, but she remembered the obligations that had led to her sacrifice.
"It would be the end for Eva. Besides," she hesitated, "perhaps you don't understand how I feel about marriage—I don't think I've got a right to get a divorce. I knew what I was doing. You've blamed yourself; have you ever thought of the wrong I did?"
"You?" He looked at her amazed, and encountering her eyes, that had the sweet, abashed look of a frightened girl, a sudden wild hope leaped up. "You mean you consider your marriage too sacred to break?"
She inclined her head.
He drew a quick breath. "Rachel!" then the sight of her face, stricken with grief and reluctance, brought him back to his senses. "I see, you mean from the religious point of view. I've always understood that; I knew you had scruples."
"I've always abhorred the light view, as if it wasn't sacred at all. I know, I feel I wronged you when I married you. I haven't any right to bring discredit on you by a divorce, unless—" she looked up gravely—"if you wish to be free to—to find happiness elsewhere, then I don't think I'd have the same right to—to insist on bearing my share of it."
He met her eyes directly; his own face blanched. "You forget that I love you!" he said slowly.