“I can’t argue with you, but I am going to try to do the proper thing,” persisted Wylie.
“Very well, then. I can’t go on pleading for myself with a man who tells me plainly he doesn’t care what I say. But remember this: if you throw me over now, you must never, never cross my path again, never think of helping Maurice in his work. I could not stand seeing you, meeting you—thinking of these few days when you could afford to let me be happy, because you were going to die and I could not presume upon it! And I suppose even you would hardly wish to cut me off from Maurice, the only person I have left in the world?”
“Zoe, Zoe!” His voice reached her as she walked away, and she paused, but could not trust herself to turn round.
“If you send me away now, it’s for ever,” she jerked out.
“Let me think,” he entreated.
“No, I won’t. Am I to go or not? You must make up your mind at once. Oh, Graham, can’t you see—I can’t bear it——”
“No, don’t go! I can’t give you up again. Forgive me, dearest. I thought I was thinking of you, and it was myself after all.”
White and trembling, Zoe allowed herself to be drawn back. “You must never do it again,” she managed to say.
“I won’t—it isn’t worth it. What does it signify if all Europe cries shame upon me as a fortune-hunter, when it would make us both miserable for ever if I wasn’t?”
“Especially when my fortune is so very desirable,” said Zoe, regaining calmness. “Plenty of hard work, with a little fancy fighting thrown in, and a month or two of imprisonment under sentence of death as an occasional variety.”