"It would have been done by now if you had not come back!"
"I thank our Lord I came!... It is His doing! Once He had sent me knowledge, I could not stay away. For, Owen ... I have made a discovery...."
"Yes." He laughed harshly. "As I knew you would one day! Never was I fool enough to doubt what would come!"
She put both her hands to her lips and kissed them, and held them out to him. He cried:
"What is this? What interlude of folly are you playing? It was your freedom you came to demand. You have not told me who the man you love is. I do not ask—I will not even know! He is your choice; that is enough!"
"He is my choice!" Her bosom heaved to the measure of her quickened breathing. The splendid colour rose over the edge of the lace scarf that was loosely knotted about her sweet throat, and surged to the pure temples, and climbed to the line of the rich red-brown hair.
"You will soon be free to tell the world so. Marry him," said Saxham, "and forget the dreary months dragged out beside the sot! For I who promised you I would never fail you; I who told you so confidently that I was cured of the accursed liquor-crave; I—well, I reckoned without my host——"
His laugh jarred her heartstrings. She cried out hotly:
"You did not deceive me wilfully! You believed what you said!"
"I believed ... and the first snare set for me tripped up my heels," said Saxham. "I paid the penalty of being cocksure. And I had not the common decency to die then and release you. True, there were reasons—they are swept away now!... I sent you to Wales that I might be free of the sight of you, that I might end the sordid comedy and have done. You have come too soon! There's no more to be said than that!"