“How can I be happy when you—when you—” Her voice dwindled away into nothingness, and she could only face him with all her agony and despair burning in her great, melting eyes.
“When I what, Helen?” he asked, gropingly. “Surely you are not troubled about me, now that my political horizon is so bright that my opponent can't look at it without smoked glasses. Oh, I'm all right. Ask Garner—ask your father—ask Braider—ask anybody.”
“I was not thinking of your election,” she found voice, to say. “Oh, Carson, do have faith in me! I crave it; I long for it; I yearn for it. I want to help you. I want to stand by you and suffer with you. You can trust me. You tried me once—you remember—and I stood the test. Before God, I'll never breathe it to a soul. Oh”—stopping him by raising her despairing hand—“don't try to deceive me because I'm a girl. The uncertainty is killing me. I'll not close my eyes to-night. The truth will be easier borne because I'll be bearing it—with you.”
“Oh, Helen, can it be possible that you—” He had spoken impulsively and essayed to check himself, but now, pale as a corpse, he stood before her not knowing what to do or say. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and then with a helpless shrug of his shoulders he lapsed into silence, a droop of utter despondency upon him. She was now sure she was right, and a shaft she had never met before entered her heart and remained there—remained there to strengthen her, good woman that she was, as such things have strengthened women of all periods. She laid her firm hand upon his arm in a pressure meant to comfort him, and with the purity of a sorrowing angel she said: “I know the truth, dear Carson, and if you don't show me a way to get you out from under it—you who did it all for my sake—if you don't I shall die. I can't stand it.”
He stood convicted before her. With bowed head he remained silent for a moment, then he said, almost with a groan: “To think, on top of it all, that you must know—you! I was bearing it all right, but now you—you poor, gentle, delicate girl—you have to be dragged into this as you have been dragged into every miserable thing that ever happened to me. It began with your brother's death—I helped stain that memory for you—now this—this unspeakable thing!”
“You did it wholly in self-defence,” she said. “You had to do it. He forced it on you.”
“Yes, yes—he or fate, the imps of Satan or the elemental passion born in me. Flight, open flight lay before me, but that would have been the death of self-respect—so it came about.”
“And you kept it on account of your mother?” she went on, insistently, her agonized face close to his.
“Yes, of course. It would kill her, Helen, and I would be doing it deliberately, for I know what the consequences would be. I must be my own tribunal. I have no right to take still another life that legal curiosity may be gratified. But till I am proven innocent I am a murderer—that's what hurts. I am offering myself to my fellow-men as a maker of laws, and yet am deliberately defying those made by my predecessors.”
“Your mother must never know,” Helen said, firmly. “No one shall but you and I, Carson. We'll bear it together.” She took his hand and held it tightly for a moment, then pressing it tenderly against her cold cheek, she lowered her head and left him—left him there under the vague starlight, the soulful fragrance of her soothing personality upon him, causing him to forget his peril, his grief, and his far-reaching sorrow, and to draw close to his aching breast her heavenly sympathy and undying fidelity.