"Why not?"
"Because you know I trust you. I always have. I always shall. Oh, God forgive me for the way I've treated you! But it's your fault. Whatever I did, I should know that I could always trust you and that in time you'd understand!" A single sob escaped her, and she steadied herself like a man stopping short at the edge of a precipice. "You've quite made up your mind? … I must go now. Will you do something for me?"
"What is it?"
"Won't you trust me? I don't want you to see me home, that's all. It'll remind me of too much. Good-bye, Eric. I used to think I didn't believe in God, but somebody's got to reward you, and I can't. Kiss me—quickly, or I shall start crying again. Good-bye, Eric! Oh, oh—my God!"
She stumbled to the door and twisted blindly at the handle. It was open before he could help her. A grey wedge of fog thrust itself past her as she hurried out of the hall.
"You're not going home alone!" he cried.
Half-way down the first flight of stairs she turned with arms outstretched like a figure nailed to a cross.
"My darling; it's the last thing I shall ever ask you!"
4
Eric slept little that night. From eleven till two he walked up and down his smoking-room, occasionally throwing himself into a chair for very exhaustion, only to jump up restlessly and resume his aimless pacing. The fingers of his right hand were yellow from the cigarettes that he was always lighting and throwing away; the rest of him became stiff and chilled as the fire died down. "As if I'd murdered her.…" The phrase, self-coined, repeated itself in his brain even when he was not thinking of the shaken, nerveless body which he had tried to revive.