"Alone, I think; yes, I shall live here; I do not find it dismal, you
know."
Sir Hugh felt himself again looking reluctantly into darkness. "But--how
will you manage it, Amabel?" he asked.
And her voice seemed to come, in all serenity, from the darkness; "I
shall manage it."
Yes, the awe hovered near him as he realised that what, to him, meant
darkness, to her meant life. She would manage it. She had managed to
live through everything.
A painful analogy came to increase his sadness;--it was like having
before one a martyr who had been bound to rack after rack and still
maintained that strange air of keeping something it was worth while
being racked for. Glancing at her it seemed to him, still more
painfully, that in spite of her beauty she was very like a martyr; that
queer touch of wildness in her eyes; they were serene, they were even
sweet, yet they seemed to have looked on horrid torments; and those
white wrappings might have concealed dreadful scars.
He took out his watch, nervously and automatically, and looked at it. He
would have to walk to the station; he could catch a train.
"And may I come, sometimes, and see you?" he asked. "I'll not bother
you, you know. I understand, at last. I see what a blunder--an ugly
blunder--this has been on my part. But perhaps you'll let me be your
friend--more really your friend than I have ever been."
And now, as he glanced at her again, he saw that the gentleness was
remote no longer. It had come near like a light that, in approaching,
diffused itself and made a sudden comfort and sweetness. She was too
weary to smile, but her eyes, dwelling gently on him, promised him
something, as, when they had dwelt with their passion of exiled love on
her son, they had promised something to Augustine. She held out her
hand. "We are friends," she said.
Sir Hugh flushed darkly. He stood holding her hand, looking at it and
not at her. He could not tell what were the confused emotions that
struggled within him; shame and changed love; awe, and broken memories
of prayers that called down blessings. It was "God bless you," that he
felt, yet he did not feel that it was for him to say these words to her.
And no words came; but tears were in his eyes as, in farewell, he bent
over her hand and kissed it.