"You see how it is? If I get a divorce it will ruin Eva."
"I see how it is, otherwise I'd shoot that fellow now, but I can't touch him without injury to you both. Yet—my God, Rachel, I've no right to hold you to it."
"You don't. I feel so differently from you about it, you don't understand. I can't break the marriage; I've got to take the punishment, for I did it myself. I've got to keep my contract."
"You mean that your scruples won't permit you to break it?"
"Don't you understand? I was wrong to do it; I see it. I did it to save Eva, but I had no right to take the vows as I did. I dare not break them."
"Do you mean you're afraid of the scandal, or the odium of it all?"
"I'll have to be very plain—I'm afraid of God."
He stood looking at her a while in silence. Then his face changed and softened.
"Like Felix, I'm almost persuaded," he said.
Rachel made a slight deprecating gesture. "Would I have made this sacrifice if I'd contemplated making it void?"