“Why? Why?” he demanded, his eyes widening, his whole body vibrant with a consuming passion. “Don’t you know? Kate, Kate, I came because I couldn’t stay away. I came because there’s just nothing in the world worth living for but you. I came because I just love you to death, and—there’s nothing else. Say, listen. I went right back from here with one fixed purpose. Maybe it won’t tell you a thing. Maybe you won’t understand. I went back to get quit of the force—honorably. I’d made my peace with them. Oh, yes, I’d done that. Then I demanded leave of absence pending my resignation. They had to grant it. I am never going back. Oh, yes, I knew what I was up against. I wanted you. I wanted you so that I couldn’t see a thing else in any other direction. There is no other direction. So I came straight here to—to ask you to forget. I came here to tell you all I feel about—the work I had to do here. I came here with a wild sort of forlorn hope you could forgive. You see, I even believed that but for—for that—there was just a shadow of hope for me. Kate——!”
The woman suddenly held up her hand. And when she spoke there was nothing of the Kate he had always known in the humility of her tone.
“It is not I who must forgive,” she said quickly. “If there is any forgiveness on this earth it is I who need it.”
“You? Forgiveness?”
The man’s face wore blank incredulity.
Kate sighed. It was the sigh of a broken-hearted woman.
“Yes. If there is any forgiveness I pray that it may come my way. I need it all—all. I can never forgive myself. It was I who caused Charlie’s death.”
Quite suddenly her whole manner changed. The humility, the sadness of her tone rose quickly to a passionate self-denunciation.
“Yes, yes. I will tell you now. Oh, man, man. Your words—every one of them, have only stabbed me more and more surely to the heart. You don’t understand. You can’t, because you do not know what I mean. Oh, yes,” she went on desperately, “why shouldn’t I admit it? I love you. I always have loved you. Let me admit everything fully and freely.”