He could not speak, the words stuck to his tongue—he wanted to fall at her feet, but could not, for he knew it would be mockery.
"I can't say anything," he stammered huskily; "we're just the victims of a damnable mistake, and the less we say about it the better. Each word one of us speaks is a wound for the other. There's only this left—
'And throughout all eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me—
As our dear Redeemer said:
This the wine and this the bread.'"
"You don't believe in the dear Redeemer, do you?"
"Of course not—but it's poetry."
They had neither of them realised that the interview was near an end, but these last words seemed to have finished it somehow. They were both standing, and the silence remained unbroken.