“Yes,” she replied, her direct intuition divining the implied alternative. “I don’t know much about Jesus and my immortal soul. That ’ll come. I want one day to be able to remember that I loved you—without hating myself and feeling sick with the shame and the horror of it all. You may think me a silly fool if you like, but that’s why I’m doing it. Let us walk on. We need n’t attract attention.” This was wise; for more than one passer-by had turned round, struck by the two intent white faces. Joyce obeyed passively, but continued for some moments to look down upon her in great wonder. An idea, which he became dimly aware had been struggling for birth in the dark of his soul for the past two hours, dawned upon him amid a strange, exulting excitement. Suddenly he took her by the arm and held it very tightly. She looked up at him, astonished.
“What is the matter with you?”
“Do you know what you have done tonight?” he said, in a shaking voice. “You have shown me how to burn out my hell too. You have retrieved any wrong you have done me. If my forgiveness is worth having, you have it, from the depths of my soul.”
He was strangely moved. In the impulse of his exaltation, he drew her quickly into the gloom of a doorway—the pavement was momentarily deserted—and kissed her. She uttered a little cry and shrank back.
“Is that for forgiveness?”
“Yes,” he cried; and then he broke from her abruptly, and went on along the pavement with great strides.
He was no longer uncertain. The problem of his life was solved. His mind was crystal clear. At last the time had come for the great atonement to his degraded self, the supreme sacrifice that should clear his being of stain.
At last he could perform that act of renunciation that would give the strength back into his eyes to meet calmly the scrutiny of his fellow-man. Renunciation! The word rang in his ears and echoed to his footsteps.
He did not doubt that it would not be to Yvonne’s lesser happiness to regain her lost environment of luxury and tender care. On the other hand, he judged her rightly enough to know that she would have found compensating pleasures in a life of privation with himself. Had it not been so, mere manliness would have decided in the Bishop’s favour. In perfect fairness (he saw now), he could have claimed her. His sacrifice was made in pure loyalty to his conscience.
And it had been reserved, too, for that ignorant, wayward woman, who had groped her unguided way thus grotesquely to the Principle, to have led him thither and revealed its elemental application. He felt a stirring of shame that strengthened his manhood.