Presently she felt that she was drawing near to it; then that she was close to it. Then she stopped. Standing still for a moment she prayed. She prayed that she might be able in this supreme crisis of her life to govern the baser part of herself, that she might be allowed, might be helped, to rise to those heights of which Father Robertson had spoken to her, that she might at last realize the finest possibilities of her nature, that she might be able to do the most difficult thing, to be humble, to forget any injury which had been inflicted upon herself, and to remember only the tremendous injury she had inflicted upon another. When her prayer was finished she did not know whether it had been heard, whether, if it had been heard, it had been accepted and would be granted. She did not know at all what she would be able to do. But she looked up and saw Dion. He was close to her, was standing just in front of her, with one arm holding the cypress trunk, trembling slightly and gazing at her, gazing at her with eyes that were terrible because they revealed so much of agony, of love and of terror. She looked into those eyes, she looked at the frightful change written on the face that had once been so familiar to her, and suddenly an immense pity inundated her. It seemed to her that she endured in that moment all the suffering which Dion had endured since the tragedy at Welsley added to her own suffering. She stood there for a moment looking at him. Then she said only:
“Forgive me, oh, forgive me!”
Tears rushed into her eyes. She had been able to say it. It had not been difficult to say. She could not have said anything else. And her soul had said it as well as her lips.
“Forgive me! Forgive me!” she repeated.
She went up to Dion, took his poor tortured temples, from which the hair, once so thick, had retreated, in her hands, and whispered again in the midst of her tears:
“Forgive me!”
“I’ve been false to you,” he said huskily. “I’ve broken my vow to you. I’ve lived with another woman—for months. I’ve been a beast. I’ve wallowed. I’ve gone right down. Everything horrible—I’ve—I’ve done it. Only last night I meant to—to—I only broke away from it all last night. I heard you were here and then I—I——”
“Forgive me!”
She felt as if God were speaking in her, through her. She felt as if in that moment God had taken complete possession of her, as if for the first time in her life she was just an instrument, formed for the carrying out of His tremendous purposes, able to carry them out. Awe was upon her. But she felt a strange joy, and even a wonderful sense of peace.
“But you don’t hear what I tell you. I have been false to you. I have sinned against you for months and months.”