There was a long silence. Feathers' big hands hung limply between his knees, his fingers still clutching at his pipe, then he said slowly, as if he were carefully choosing his words:
"If young Atkins could be man enough to—go—what would you think of me—if I stayed?"
His voice was quite quiet, though a little hoarse, but its very steadiness seemed both to conceal and reveal more than an outburst 202 of passion would have done, and Marie gave a little stifled cry.
And Feathers went on, speaking in the same quiet voice:
"You see, Mrs. Lawless, I know the world, and you do not! I know what a mountain of regrets one lays up for the future if—if one forgets other things . . . Chris is a good fellow—until he married you I thought him the best chap in the world—I think so still, except that I cannot forgive him for having failed to make you happy; but . . . but my failure will be worse than his, if I—if I try to deceive myself with the belief that I can . . . can give you what he cannot."
"I have always been happy with you," said Marie in a whisper.
Her cheeks were like fire, and she felt that she could never look him in the face again, and yet her whole desire was to keep him with her—to prevent him from walking out of her life, as she knew he intended doing.
She felt very much as she had done that morning when he saved her from drowning—a terrible feeling of hopelessness and despair, until the moment when the grip of his strong hands caught her.
He had saved her life then. Was he going to let her drown now in the depths of her own misery?
Once he went away it would be the end of everything, she knew. He would never come back any more, and for the rest of her life she would have to go on trying to make the best of things, trying to get used to having a bachelor husband.