'I will return whenever you wish me, my dear,' he said, as he laid his hand on hers. 'For the rest, look on my house as yours.'
She hesitated.
'Wait,' she said faintly, 'I have so much I ought to tell you.'
'You can tell me in your own time. I shall not leave Paris, at least only for a day or so at a time. My uncle died a few weeks ago, and many affairs in consequence keep me here. Adieu, my dear: rest and recover. That is all you have to do now.'
'But I have no right to be in your house, and you know that the lady despised me!' she murmured with a painful agitation, which said, without more words, how cruel a dilemma it seemed to her in which her weakness and her helplessness had placed her.
'You have every right,' said Othmar. 'And she would be the first to say so. Do not hurt me by taking this kindly chance which made us meet as a burden or an injury. I have often thought of you since we parted that night upon your island beach, and always with a deep regret that my wife had so fatally influenced your life. Will you not believe how glad I am to be able to do you any little service to help efface that wrong?'
He kissed in grave farewell her wasted hand, once so plump and brown with youth and health, and the bronze from the sun and the sea, and now so pale and fleshless.
She looked at him and stopped him with something of her old pride and spirit in her face, as she said a little abruptly:
'You remember you told me it would be mean not to tell him where I had been that day?'
'Yes, my poor child. I remember.'