Armstrong’s voice broke for a moment. “And I said you were jealous!” he reproached himself. Then he continued his appeal. “But granting all this, it cannot settle the matter, deeply as I deplore it. My own blindness and stupidity are to blame for it, and I must accept the full responsibility; but my love for you has never and could never be transferred to her or to any one else. I have been criminally neglectful, I have been culpably dense, but through it all you, and you alone, have been in my heart. I have longed to say this to you even while the spell was on me. I have longed to fold you in my arms and ease the pain I have seen you suffer, but I found myself powerless in this as in all else. Can you not—will you not—believe what I say?”
Helen looked up into her husband’s face before she replied.
“Sometimes I wish you were not so conscientious, Jack—but of course I don’t mean that; only it would make it easier for me to adhere to my determination to do what I know is right. I was sure that this moment would arrive; I know your ideas of duty and loyalty, and I know that you would sacrifice yourself and your future rather than be false to either. I believe that you are sincere in thinking that your sentiments toward Inez are purely platonic—I am sure they would be so long as you were not free to have them otherwise.”
“Then why do you insist that they are otherwise?”
“I don’t insist—I am simply accepting things as they really are, even though I must suffer by doing so. You are the only one who does not realize it, unless it be Inez herself. Cerini told me, ‘I have never seen two individualities cast in so identical a mould.’ Professor Tesso, who saw you at work together at the library, said, ‘There is a perfect union of well-mated souls’; you yourself, when we returned from that moonlight ride, said to her, ‘You are the only one who understands me.’ It has simply been your absorption in your work and your loyalty to me which has kept you from seeing it yourself.”
“Cerini said that—Tesso saw us at the library?” Armstrong looked at Helen in bewilderment. “You thought my remark to Miss Thayer possessed anything more than momentary significance?” His face assumed an expression of still greater concern. “I have, indeed, been more culpable than I realized. Is it not enough if I tell you that you are all wrong—that I do not love any one except the one person I have a right to love?”
Helen smiled sadly. “No, Jack,” she replied, kindly but firmly, “it is all too clear. When you return to your real life, as you must do, you will return to your real self as well. Then you will know that I have saved you from the greatest mistake of all. You and Inez are meant for each other, and always have been.” She looked up with a brave but unsuccessful attempt to smile. “Perhaps our little experience together has been necessary in the development of us both, dear. If so, it will make it easier to believe that our mutual suffering will not have been in vain.”
“I will never accept it, Helen!” cried Armstrong, desperately in earnest. “Your devotion to this false idea will do more than all I have done to wreck our lives. You must listen to reason.”
“Don’t make it any harder for me than it is,” Helen begged, her voice choking. “I am trying to talk calmly, and to do what I know I must do; but I have been through so much already. Please don’t make it any harder.”
Armstrong longed to comfort her, but he knew that she would repulse him if he tried. He watched the conflict through which the girl was passing and was overwhelmed by the sense of his own responsibility. He realized how near the tension was to the breaking-point, and dared not pursue the subject further. Taking both her hands in his, he gazed long into her eyes now filled with tears.