Thus began the re-telling of her tragic story, partly I fancy, to ease the load that lay so heavy on her heart, partly to track down some clue that might yet save Archie.
On ran her narrative, when neither Archie's needs nor our own desire for sleep took precedence, during the seventy-two hours of his illness. It was not now the naked bones of the tragedy that she showed me. In her search for any word and moment in the tragedy that might throw light on the dark places of Archie's heart, she laid bare before my eyes, that were at least pitiful, all she had seen, imagined, suffered.
By the second midnight, when Archie was quiet and we sat together by the fire, the story had wound its indirect way as far as her promise to renounce Dick and return to her husband.
'And then he found Dick kissing me!' she cried in a strained voice. 'No wonder if...' she lapsed into silence, staring into the fire with eyes that watching had sunk deep. Presently she turned her head aside and I guessed she was crying.
'Wasn't it that kiss that killed his heart?' she asked at last.
Snatches of raving rang in my ears as I shrugged my shoulders.
She seemed to gather herself together. 'I'll bring it back to life,' she said.
Then, as if she read scepticism in my silence, 'I'm not pretending to you—I've told you too much—that I love Archie as once I did. Nor will I pretend with Archie. He'd see through me, suffering sharpens the eyes. But...' she stood up and, for the first time since she had sought me, I had a girl before me, 'I can and will prove I'm not what I've let him think.'
'What Archie pursues,' I said rather pompously, 'and in himself achieves is loyalty, cleanness....'
'While I'm unloyal, dirtied,' she broke in. 'Yes, I am. But I'll show him my ideals are his.'