Poor, guilty soul! It seemed to her that she could have forgiven her husband a sin as terrible as her own had been. She could not understand the absolute horror with which he shrunk from her, the abhorrence of her guilt that filled his soul. She could not believe that his love was dead.
“I will throw myself in his way—I will make him remember me. Perhaps the embers of the old love will leap into flame again,” she thought with a passionate yearning; and she resolved to throw off all disguise and let him know that she was near him.
He was living with his mother in a small flat where they played at keeping house in a sort of doll fashion. He came home one winter afternoon tired and cold from one of the great newspaper offices to his tea, and found her there in the tiny parlor, a great basket of hot-house flowers on the cozy tea-table, and behind it her face.
Camille’s face—colorless, yet dazzling as ever, with the feverish fire of hope shining in the wine-dark eyes, the red mouth trembling with a smile of hope and love, about her the sheen of silk and velvet and lace, the glitter of diamonds, the seductive breath of some rare perfume. She was all alone, and when he entered, she flung herself wildly at his feet.
“Oh, my beloved! my beloved! I could not stay away from you any longer. Forgive me, take me back!” she pleaded, wildly.
The young man grew pale as death, but he drew back from her; he pushed away the white, jeweled hands that would have clung to him.
“Do not touch me! There is blood on your hands!” he said.
Camille started and looked down at her hands.
“Oh, Norman, how you frightened me. I—I—thought—” she wailed, then paused abruptly.
“What madness is this? Why have you come here?” he demanded, bitterly.