"You told him that?" she interrupted, wondering over the answer.
"Yes—just as I am telling you. He listened to me quietly,—strangely quiet, I thought—until I looked up and saw him gazing down upon that table as if he had not heard a single word. It was a long time before he answered me, and when his eyes met mine again, they were full of weariness, almost pitifully weary. I believe the fellow is killing himself with work."
"What did he say?" Natalia's voice came low and halting.
"He said that if we should ever need each other, it would be now; that when I went away I must take you with me; that if you were not with me at such a time, our love would have lost its usefulness; that if it meant anything to us, it must shine brighter in our time of trouble."
Natalia rose from the chair and went to the window. Resting her hands against the bars, she peered out into the fast gathering dusk; her back towards Morgan, giving her a certain sense of privacy which she craved at that moment. As Morgan continued talking to her, she found herself watching with a strange intentness, the objects disappearing from her view as the night shadows crept nearer and nearer.
"I told him how I feared your love for me was gone," Morgan continued, his words rolling out with increasing enthusiasm. "Of how I felt my deed had made a great abyss between us. It was then that he said you were not a woman who would forsake the man she loved when he needed her most. He said it was the time in a woman's life when she became divine—when the woman was like you; pure and true and noble."
"Pure and true and noble." Again the great thought of immolation surged through Natalia. She gripped the bars before her, steadying herself with the little strength that seemed left her. Pure and true and noble! He had said that of her, he had thought that of her, and he had known her only years ago. And yet she was causing him to give up everything in his life, even his political career, to save her happiness!
The night was about her now. The square of window through which she peered became a black splotch in which her thoughts burst into tongues of far-reaching flames.
In the long silence she heard Morgan coming towards her. His arm slipped around her waist, and as his words came, she felt his hot breath against her cheek.
"He talked about you so beautifully, Natalia," he said, with a half-humourous note in his voice, "that one would have thought it was he who was in love with you instead of I. He said that I must fight for your love now, more than I ever had before; that I must make you forget everything that had happened, in the happiness I could bring you. And then—in a moment—it came to me—the mistake I had made. I had been looking for you to do everything; and I nothing for myself."