“I hardly dare tell you,” he replied, as the possible consequence of his confession sent a shiver of fear through him.
“Ah, he is the same terribly hateful, determined man as ever.” She gave a slight shudder. “So the man who told Prosper he had seen him was right after all. But you, Geoffrey; how did you encounter him? You said you did not know him in the old days, before his supposed death. Tell me quickly. I cannot understand what has happened.”
He took her hand as they sat together. “I don’t know how I can tell you,” he said, in a troubled voice. “For my story involves a confession; a hateful confession which may rob me of the thing I hold dearest in the world. Yet I must tell you everything, everything, and trust to your nobleness, to your love to judge me fairly. Promise me you will not condemn me till you have heard the whole history. I swear to you I will keep back nothing, extenuate nothing: you shall know the story as I know it.”
The hand which lay in his gave a little pressure of confidence, and with that he released it. At least he would spare her—and himself—the pain of taking it away. Then he told her everything of his life since his first meeting with Gastineau: told his story shortly, succinctly, yet, as he had promised, omitting nothing of importance, nothing that an enemy or his own conscience would have bade him tell. Alexia listened with half-averted face. Now and again she broke in with an exclamation of wonder, for the tale was surely one of the strangest that ever woman heard from her lover’s lips; once or twice she asked a question for an explanation of Gastineau’s almost incredible procedure; that was all. She heard him without sign of impatience to the end, and he could not tell, dared not seek to anticipate his story’s effect upon her. Yet he feared. The account of the accident, their meeting, and the supposititious death of Gastineau was plain, though dramatic enough; the suggestion of the singular partnership did not seem greatly to exceed the relations of coach and pupil; but, viewed in the light of its effects, of the moral situation to which it had driven Herriard, of the vindictive use to which Gastineau had constantly put his pupil, of the fraud and falsehood that lay behind Herriard’s career, none the less dishonest in that their only bad effect was the injury to himself, all this when related plainly seemed horribly condemnatory. Still, he stuck unflinchingly to his task, feeling that nothing but truth must exist between him and his love; and, besides, this was the only, yet the least, atonement he could make.
It was only when he had come to an end of his unvarnished story that he let his tone change to pleading.
“If you knew, my love,” he said, passionately remorseful, “how I have hated myself for these years of falsehood, how I fought against the temptation to declare my love, knowing I was unworthy of yours, till at last it was too strong to resist, you would pity me. And you must know that with my love came the determination to end the situation regardless of consequences, to strip off the bonds of deception that bound me. The release has come, thank God, and I am a free man, and you are, if it must be, a free woman, whose path need never run with mine again.”
He paused, hanging on her answer. To his unspeakable joy her hand was laid on his, and, as he turned, he read nothing but love in her eyes.
“Alexia!” he cried, in the delicious release from a great fear; and next moment was on his knees by her side kissing her. “And you can still love me?” he murmured.
“Why not?” she replied. “What bar is it between us that you have been led into and caught in a false position by the most plausible, unprincipled brain in the world?”
“But the living lie that I have been,” he urged, resolved that nothing should be glossed over, and feeling a prompt forgiveness was more than he deserved.