His manner was quiet and cold. Jane made no answer.
"Naturally, I have studied the pathology of insanity closely. I know that I have inherited the disease. The symptoms within the last six months are unmistakable. I know that in five or ten years at the outside I shall be of no more use in the world than any other mindless animal. But I will have no woman, nor child, suffer for me."
When he ceased to speak the silence and the night fell oppressively on them. The boat had drifted down to the edge of the bank and grounded. The moonlight showed her to him sitting in the bow of the boat facing him, her hands clasped on her knees. She was so near that if he but opened his arms he could take her to his breast. Yet he knew that she was separated from him now as though death itself lay between.
"I have known this necessity which lay upon me for years, Miss Swendon," he said quietly, but leaning forward to watch her immovable face. "It is my duty to isolate myself as other men need not do. The more dear"—his voice failed suddenly, but he recovered himself in a moment and went on—"the more dear a woman is to me, the more I must shut her out of my sight. I can never try to win her nor marry her."
Was the girl stone? Had she not even common human sympathy for him?
"You understand why I do this?"
"Yes, I understand."
"And you think I am right?"
She looked up at him with her usual blunt directness: "You are altogether right. An honest man could not do otherwise." Her chin fell on her breast again. Not a moan, not a breath of regret, at the blow which struck them apart. Weaker women would have cried a little at parting from a dog who had been sometimes a companion. This cool-blooded Swede gave her verdict on the right and wrong of the matter as though it had been a sale of goods, and there was the end of it! All the long-latent passion in Neckart's nature revolted and flamed into life. He moved restlessly, watching her sit there stony and immovable. He would have flung away life, as men used to do against the dumb Sphinx, to tear from her some word of pity or life.
The boat rocked in the shallow water. She rose to leave it. Neckart mechanically held out his hand to help her jump ashore. She held it tightly, and when she stood beside him on the grass took it in both her own: "No. You ought never to marry. You ought to hold yourself apart from the world. These strange people would only irritate and wear you out. Now you can give yourself entirely to us. We are your nearest friends. You shall give up the paper and politics: it is the work and anxiety that are telling on your brain. You shall live here with father, in the quiet and country air. I will take care of you both." She stroked his hand as a mother might that of her dying child, trying to believe that it was not growing cold. For a year the girl had fought death back from her father step by step. Now, her one friend, who with the old man filled all the world for her, was to be taken from her.