"Your face, even your voice betrays you. If you had decided to refuse my prayer, you would look and speak differently. You would despise yourself, and your very looks would reveal it."
"I did not know you were such a close observer," he replies, "but it is true. You have saved me from myself, Reine."
As he speaks he leans forward, tossing a folded paper into her lap. The oars lie idle a moment, as they drift at the mercy of the wind and tide, while she reads the precious note.
Then she lifts her eyes, full of eloquent thankfulness, to his face.
"I expected no less of you," she says. "I knew you could not be so cruel to Maud."
The handsome blonde face darkens.
"It was not solely for Maud's sake," he replies. "Pray remember that I would not have yielded to you, Reine, only—only you showed me so plainly what a monster I was, and how truly I would be that false girl's murderer if I persevered. And then—then, I could not bear to have my wife ashamed of me."
He looks away consciously as he speaks. A thousand tingling little arrows of rapture shoot through her frame as the low words, "my wife," fall from his lips; spoken not harshly nor sneeringly, but kindly, almost tenderly. Is it possible, she asks herself, in thrilling silence, that he may one day forgive her, and be kind to her—nay, even give her love for love?
"I remembered," he goes on, even more kindly, "that this was the first request my wife had made of me, and I could not choose but grant it."