“That's very beautiful,” Herold interrupted, “but love is a different matter. When did the real love come to you?”
“I think it was that morning in the garden when you almost whipped me,” said Stella. She started an inch or two away from him. “And I 'm sure you knew it,” she said.
And he remembered, as he had often remembered in his great struggle, her eyes, turning from agates to diamonds and her words, “Do you love me like that?”
“Heaven knows, Stellamaris dear; I did not mean to betray myself.”
She laughed the enigmatic laugh of a woman's contentment, and Herold was too wise to ask why.
They spoke of deepest things. “There is something I must tell you,” said he, “which up to now I have had to keep secret, and it is right that you should know.”
And he told Her the story of Unity and himself—the revolver, their talk of the evil woman, their parting words, his crazed adventure through the sunny streets.
She listened, her body leaning forward, her hands clasped on her knee. When he had finished, she sat without change of attitude.
“You did that so that another man could marry the woman you loved. Unity did that so that the man she loved could marry another woman. John came in to-night to sacrifice himself and give us both happiness. The three of you have done terrible and splendid things. I am the only one of us four who has done nothing.”
Herold rose, took a nervous pace or two. What she said needed more than a lover's sophistical reassurance. He could speak a thousand words of comfort; but he knew that her soul required a supreme answer, a clue to the dark labyrinth through which she had worked. What could he say? He looked through the window, and suddenly saw that which to him was an inspiration. He threw the folding-doors wide. It had stopped raining long ago, though neither had noticed.