She advanced a step toward him; it was not possible, even yet, to completely forgot the past. She held out her hand.
He rose on his side—without looking at her.
“Before we part forever,” she said to him, “will you take my hand as a token that you forgive me?”
He hesitated. He half lifted his hand. The next moment the generous impulse died away in him. In its place came the mean fear of what might happen if he trusted himself to the dangerous fascination of her touch. His hand dropped again at his side; he turned away quickly.
“I can’t forgive her!” he said.
With that horrible confession—without even a last look at her—he left the room.
At the moment when he opened the door Julian’s contempt for him burst its way through all restraints.
“Horace,” he said, “I pity you!”
As the words escaped him he looked back at Mercy. She had turned aside from both of them—she had retired to a distant part of the library The first bitter foretaste of what was in store for her when she faced the world again had come to her from Horace! The energy which had sustained her thus far quailed before the dreadful prospect—doubly dreadful to a woman—of obloquy and contempt. She sank on her knees before a little couch in the darkest corner of the room. “O Christ, have mercy on me!” That was her prayer—no more.
Julian followed her. He waited a little. Then his kind hand touched her; his friendly voice fell consolingly on her ear.