"Do not fly from me," he said to her. "I have sought you, to ask your forgiveness, and——"
She stood silent, her head bent; her hands were crossed upon her chest in the posture habitual to her under any pain; her face was hidden in the shadow; her little bundle of clothes had dropped on the grasses, and was hidden by them. Of Flamma's death and of her homelessness he had heard nothing.
"I was harsh to you," he said, gently. "I spoke, in the bitterness of my heart, unworthily. I was stung with a great shame;—I forgot that you could not know. Can you forgive?"
"The madness was mine," she muttered. "It was I, who forgot——"
Her voice was very faint, and left her lips with effort; she did not look up; she stood bloodless, breathless, swaying to and fro, as a young tree which has been cut through near the root sways ere it falls. She knew well what his words would say.
"You are generous, and you shame me—indeed—thus," he said with a certain softness as of unwilling pain in his voice which shook its coldness and serenity.
This greatness in her, this wondrous faithfulness to himself, this silence, which bore all wounds from his hand, and was never broken to utter one reproach against him, these moved him. He could not choose but see that this nature, which he bruised and forsook, was noble beyond any common nobility of any human thing.
"I have deserved little at your hands, and you have given me much," he said slowly. "I feel base and unworthy; for—I have sought you to bid you farewell."
She had awaited her death-blow; she received its stroke without a sound.
She did not move, nor cry out, nor make any sign of pain, but standing there her form curled within itself, as a withered fern curls, and all her beauty changed like a fresh flower that is held in a flame.