'You call it play! To me it's deadly earnest. I let you go once. I do not mean to let you go again.'
'But you are talking wildly. Don't you see that it is impossible we can be friends.'
'Oh! that I grant you. We must be everything to each other—or nothing.'
In spite of her cold peremptoriness he could see that she was deeply agitated. That fact gave him courage. His voice dropped to the tender persuasive note which had always affected her like a spell.
'My dear—my very dearest.... We made a great mistake once. Let us forget that. Death has opened the gate of freedom—for me, at least—and I can only feel remorseful thankfulness. We have again a chance of happiness. We will not throw it away a second time.'
'You seem to forget that if you are free I am married.'
'What a marriage? Call it a mad adventure.'
'That may be,' she said bitterly. 'But it doesn't alter the fact that I did care very much for my husband.' She brought out the last words with difficulty.
'DID care. You put it in the past tense. You don't care for him any longer. It would be astonishing if you did. One has only to see you together.... Oh, Biddy, it was so like you to rush off to the other side of the world, and ruin your life for the sake of some strange impracticable idea! I can follow it all....'
'You are mistaken,' she put in.