She was naturally sensitive to others' suffering, and it seemed to her that not only Archie, not only herself, but the whole forest vibrated with pain. She had created it: nothing she could do would dull it.
She found herself resenting the pity that tore her heart—that desolating, impotent, futile pity! What was the good of pity, affection even, for Archie, when it was passion she felt for Dick. All that remorse could do was to blunt, to sully that passion. It was too late to think of Archie's feelings now. She could only go forward.
'Archie!' she said. He was standing with his back turned to her, his hands deep in his pockets, clenched, they must have been, and tightly, for the veins on his arms to stand up like that. 'Archie, stay there, don't turn round till I've told you.'
He made neither sign nor sound.
'Archie, I think I'm going to hurt you. I've only just seen...' Words, words which altered nothing, spared nothing. She spoke quickly, raising her voice. 'That letter, the letter that's waiting at the farm, said I was ... was leaving you.'
'Leaving me,' he repeated her statement, his voice toneless like a sleep-walker's.
Suddenly he whipped round, for the instant mastered by his emotion. He caught her shoulder and held her at arm's length. That night she found the bruise, but at the time she felt the pain no more than he knew he inflicted it.
'Why, Norah, why? I thought we were going to be so happy. I never knew. Never guessed. Tell me, why?'
She felt explanation impossible. Her hands came out to touch him, but fell helpless to her sides.
'But I never meant to hurt you so, my dear,' she said.