They had never laid all this on the table before them, so to speak, but both had realized it from the beginning. They had walked beside the social precipice serene, but aware of the depths—and the heights.
"I hate to be limited by the opinions, the prejudices, of other people, of any one," the man protested. "There seems a cowardice in silently acquiescing in social laws that I don't respect, because the majority so wills it."
"Not because it is the will of the majority—not that; but because others near you will be made wretched. That is the only morality I have!"
The law of pity in the place of the law of God! A fragile leash for passion and egotism. They both shuddered.
The dusk gathered all about them. Her head still rested on his breast, and her hand stole to his face. She whispered, "So we pay the forfeit—for our blindness!"
"And if I stay—"
"Don't say it! Don't say that! Do you think that I could be here this moment in your arms if that were possible?"
Her voice trembled with scorn, disgust of the adulterous world.
"Hiding and corner lies for us? No, no, my lover,—not for you! Not even for me. That is the one price too great to pay for happiness. It would kill it all. Kill it! Surely. I should become in your eyes—like one of—them. It would be—oh, you understand!" She buried her head in his coat.
Again she had saved them, kept the balance of their ideal. She would have love, not hidden lust. What she had done this once could never be done again without defilement. She had come to him as to a man condemned to die, to leave the earth forever, and the one most precious thing he wanted and the one most precious thing that she had to give,—that she had given freely—to the man condemned to death.