"Well, now, you mustn't stay here any longer. I suppose you've got a carriage? And we mustn't meet again. There's no object in it. But I'll remember that you came."
She looked at him. In her nature the great deeps were breaking up. She saw him as she had seen him in her first youth. And, at last, what she had done was plain to her.
With a cry she threw herself on the floor beside him. She pressed his hand in hers.
"Roger, let me stay! Let me nurse you!" she panted. "I didn't understand. Let me be your friend! Let me help! I implore—I implore you!"
He hesitated a moment, then he lifted her to her feet decidedly, but not unkindly.
"What do you mean?" he said, slowly. "Do you mean that you wish us to be husband and wife again? You are, of course, my wife, in the eye of English law, at this moment."
"Let me try and help you!" she pleaded again, breaking into bitter tears. "I didn't—I didn't understand!"
He shook his head.
"You can't help me. I—I'm afraid I couldn't bear it. We mustn't meet. It—it's gone too deep."
He thrust his hands into his pockets and walked away to the window. She stood helplessly weeping.