He looked as if he were conferring a kingdom on me.
“Listen to me, Reggie,” I said. “I can never, never be your wife now.”
“Why not? What have you done?” His old anger and suspicion were mounting. He was looking at me lovingly, yet furiously.
“I’ve done nothing—nothing—but I cannot be your wife.”
“If you mean because of Boston—I’ve forgiven everything. I fought it all out in Montreal and I made up my mind that I had to have you. So I’m going to marry you, darling. You don’t seem to understand.”
Further and further away I had backed from him, but now he was right before me. I looked up at Reggie, but a vision arose between us— Paul Bonnat’s face. Paul who was waiting for me, who had offered to share his all with me, and somehow it seemed to me more immoral to marry Reggie than to live with the man I loved.
“Reggie Bertie,” I said, “it’s you who don’t understand. I can never be your wife because—because—” Oh, it was very hard to drive that look of love and longing from Reggie’s face. Once I had loved him, and although he had hurt me so cruelly in the past, in that moment I longed to spare him the pain that was to be his now.
“Well? What is it, Marion? What have you done?”
“Reggie, it’s this: I no longer love you!” I said.