'It is not too late, Roland. You have sinned against yourself. If it were too late you would be happy after the kind of those who can live in sin and be happy. Since you are not happy, it is not too late. The doors of heaven stand open night and day for all.'
'You talk the old language, Armorel.'
'It is the language of my soul. I will say the same thing in any tongue you please, so that you understand me.'
'To go back—to begin all over again—to go on as if the last three years had never been——'
'Yes—yes—as if they had never been! That is best. As if they had never been.'
'Armorel, do you know,' he asked her quickly—'do you know the thing—the Awful Thing—that I have done?'
'Do not tell me. Never tell me.'
'Some day, I think I must. What shall I say, now?'
'Say that your footsteps are turned in the old way, Roland.'
He pushed back the chair and stood up. Now, if they had been measured, he would have proved four inches and a half taller than the girl, for he was half an inch short of six feet, and she was exactly five feet seven. Yet as they stood face to face, it seemed to him—and to her as well—as if she towered over him by as many inches as separate the tallest woman from the smallest man. Nature thus accommodates herself to the mental condition of the moment.