Feathers sat down beside her. He put an arm round her shrinking figure as a big brother might have done, and his voice when he spoke was infinitely gentle.
"Last night was a dream," he said. "Let us forget it. I alone am to blame. No, no—let me go on," as she would have spoken. "No matter how much we might—I might love you, there are other things that count even more in the sum total of happiness—things I should be powerless to give you, and so . . . so we must forget . . . last night . . . and go back . . . . But you know that, Marie—without my telling you."
She looked up at him then, and suddenly she broke out wildly:
"It isn't that I don't love you—that I didn't mean it when I said I loved you. Oh, don't think that—don't think that!"
Feathers rose abruptly. He walked away from her, and his face was white, as Marie went on hopelessly.
"I can't explain myself—I don't understand myself. I only know that I've never been so happy in all my life as—as I was last night when—when you kissed me—I shall always remember it, always— It's too late to hope that I shall ever be happy with . . . with Chris—even if—if I wanted to; but—but he is my husband, and so . . ." She half turned, flinging despairing arms towards him. "Oh, 277 help me, please help me," she said sobbing.
Feathers came back to her, knelt down beside her, and took both her hands in his. The pallor had not left his face, but it was wonderful in its tenderness and his voice was infinitely gentle when he spoke.
"Chris came to my rooms last night—after . . . after you had gone." She looked up with terrified eyes.
"Chris!"
"Yes." Feathers drew a hard breath. "Marie, you know that . . . that he loves you, too?"