"I've told him I can't live with him any more"
She broke down into stifled sobbing. "I've done my best—you know I have—and now it's finished. We had a dreadful scene last night . . . and I can't go back to him again—I can't."
Feathers tried to speak. Twice he moistened his lips and tried to speak, but no words would come. The room was rocking before him. The night was full of tempting voices whispering that she had come to him because she loved him, and because she knew he loved her.
With a desperate effort he found his voice.
"You don't mean what you are saying, I know, Mrs. Lawless; you are tired and upset. Let me see Chris, and if there is any little trouble that can be put right he will listen to me." He held out his hand to her. "Let me take you home."
"It can never be all right again," she said, her voice broken with sobbing. "He never cared for me, you know he never did . . ."
Feathers interrupted gently.
"But you love him. My dear, I know that you have always loved him."
Marie looked up, the tears wet on her cheeks, her sobbing suddenly quiet. "Do you know what I told him?" she asked, and then, as he did not answer, she added in a whisper: "I told him that I loved you."
258 It seemed to Feathers as if all the world stood still in that moment—as if he and Marie were alone in a great silence, looking into one another's eyes.