“Yes, so I learned. There was a youth here who told me.”
She stopped him, flushing wildly. “A youth! Struan was here? Then it's true—it's true?”
He was quite calm under this outcry. “Yes, your champion Glyde was here. A good fellow in the main, but, Lord! what a donkey! I think I did him good. He left me a week ago. He had told me about you—found out where you lived, and what was happening.” She sat with her face between her hands, dared not let him see it.
Senhouse resumed the question of her marriage. “It doesn't matter what you do. You are you. So Ingram has forgiven Master Glyde, and now—”
She lifted her pale face at this name of duty.
“His wife died a year ago; rather more. He wants me to marry him, and I think I must.”
“You don't want to?” She shook her head, watching her fingers tear the grass.
“No,” she said, “not in the least. But I shall do it. Don't you think that I should?”
He thought, then threw his arms out. “God knows what I am to say! If the world held only you and me and him—here—fast in this valley—I tell you fairly. I should stop it.” She looked up quickly, and their eyes met. Hers were haunted with longing. He had to turn his head. “But it doesn't. To me what you intend to do seems quite horrible because I am flesh, and cannot see that you are spirit. That is a perfectly reasonable reading of the Laws, which says, What I did as a child I must abide as a woman. It's a law of Nature, after all's said; and yet it can be contradicted in a breath. It's one of those everlasting propositions which are true both ways, positively and negatively; for Nature says, That is my rule, and immediately after, Break it if you're strong enough. Now, you are, but I am not.”
Once more they looked at each other, these two who had but one desire between them—and who knew it each of each. And again it was he who broke away.