"Then ..." she went on, after a slight pause, still whispering, "are you
... taking morphine again?"
There was no pause before his answer.
"Yes," he said, his face still drooped away from her.
She caught one hand to her breast. She could not believe her own ears.
Had he said "Yes" at once--simply--outright like that, to such a
question? Something fine and brave in her throbbed response to that
unequivocal "Yes."
"Cecil...." she said.
All at once he tossed up his hands to his bent face. His great figure,
huddled on the little chair, began shaking from head to foot.
"Oh, my God!" he said. "My God! Don't be kind to me ... don't be kind!"
And dreadful sobs began heaving through him.
"Oh ... _poor Cecil_...!" came from her in a gasp.
And then he fell forward on his knees before her, his face in her lap,
his hands grasping the soft folds of her gown. His tumultuous, painful
sobbing shook them both--as if torn up by bloody roots came the great
sobs.
"Sophy.... God.... Sophy.... I've suffered.... I've suffered.... If he'd
died.... Yes ... one shot ... yes ... one...."
And his passion of grief, torrential as his passion of love, flooded
her, shook her with its cyclonic abandonment, until she seemed one flesh
with him in this unmeasured tragedy of wild remorse.
Through her thin gown she felt his tears soak to her very skin--a hot
chrism baptising her once more his in this terrific rite of sorrow.
She bent over him, her hands upon his head, her own tears falling.
"No ... no!" she pleaded. "No ... no, Cecil! Don't ... don't despair
like this ... we will begin again.... The truth.... You have told the
truth...."
She began to sob herself now.
"And the truth shall make you free ... the truth shall make you free,
dear...." she kept sobbing.
Now she had his head against her breast--her cheek pressed down on it.
As she held Bobby to comfort him, when he was frightened, so she held
the great man. He was afraid now--afraid of himself--like a child. Close
she held him to comfort him ... close ... close....